Anthropology and Culturally Targeted AIDS Prevention

Abstract

As various ethnic and culturally diverse communities respond to the threat of AIDS, anthropological approaches are useful for contextualizing the social conditions associated with the spread of HIV and for developing culturally and socially targeted means to reduce infection, disease, and death. Through analysis of social and economic relations, beliefs and value systems, and other expressions of group interaction and cultural meaning, programs can be constructed to respond to the disease in its social and cultural context. An example of this process can be seen in Project COPE, a community-based AIDS prevention project that targets injection drug users (IDUs) and their sex partners in Hartford, Connecticut. The following discussion illustrates some of the ways anthropological analysis and research techniques were used to shape and evaluate the project's design, risk reduction methodology, and implementation procedures.