Investigating the HIV/AIDS Disparity with Cultural Geography and Public Health Methods

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校托尼娅·波蒂亚特博士的赞助下，这项博士后奖学金资助了一位研究农村艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异的文化地理的早期职业科学家。除了临床描述外，对于与健康差异有关的空间和文化认同，人们还知之甚少。为了解决这个问题，领先的艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异研究人员呼吁采用叙事和以社区为重点的方法进行工作。该项目采用这种方法来考虑在社区中谈判艾滋病毒/艾滋病差距的方式。通过重点叙述，该项目调查了与健康不平等有关的农村社区的轮廓和功能。该项目旨在提供关键的洞察力，了解口述历史如何将艾滋病毒/艾滋病对美国社区和社会经历的影响的空间知识联系起来并调动起来。研究方法：(1)研究综述，(2)口述历史访谈，(3)实地观察。研究审查涉及权衡以前发表的创造性写作和人文主义研究中的文献如何提供类似于口述历史的叙述，传达个人和社区对艾滋病毒/艾滋病差异的反应。这种研究审查旨在为公共卫生方法提供信息，并提高对艾滋病毒/艾滋病在文化方面的差异的理解。该项目的田野工作包括收集一系列口述历史访谈和进行实地观察，以权衡作为主要数据的人文叙事的相关潜力。访谈的重点尤其是1980年代至今艾滋病毒/艾滋病的影响如何改变了个人与农村社区的关系以及集体社会环境的形成方式。这项研究最终将从受影响者的角度促进对艾滋病毒差距的社会领域的更好理解，以便加强更多迎合需要的、特定地点的干预措施。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Tonia Poteat at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist researching the cultural geography of rural HIV/AIDS disparities. Not enough is yet known about spatial and cultural identities in relation to health disparities beyond clinical descriptors. To address this issue, leading HIV/AIDS disparity researchers call for work that employs narrative and community-focused approaches. This project employs such approaches to consider the ways HIV/AIDS disparities are negotiated in communities. By focusing on narratives, this project investigates the contours and functions of rural communities related to health inequity. This project aims to provide critical insight into how oral histories contextualize and mobilize spatial knowledge of HIV/AIDS' impact on the community and social experiences in the United States. It uses (1) research review, (2) oral history interviewing, and (3) field observation. Research review involves weighing how previously published literature in the creative writing and humanistic studies offer narratives similar to oral history that relay personal and community responses to HIV/AIDS disparity. Such research review is designed to inform public health methodology and improve understandings of HIV/AIDS disparity in cultural terms. Fieldwork for the project involves collecting a series of oral history interviews and conducting field observations to weigh the pertinent potential of humanistic narratives as primary data. In particular, interviews focus on how the impact of HIV/AIDS from the 1980s to now has altered individual's relationships to their rural communities as well as the ways collective social environments have formed. This study will ultimately foster improved understandings of the social terrain of HIV disparity from the points-of-views of those affected by it in order to potentiate more catered, place-specific interventions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.