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Quantitative, Qualitative and Geospatial Methods to Characterize HIV Risk Environments.

ABSTRACT: Increasingly, 'place', including physical and geographical characteristics as well as social meanings, is recognized as an important factor driving individual and community health risks. This is especially true among marginalized populations in low and middle income countries (LMIC), whose environments may also be more difficult to study using traditional methods. In the NIH-funded longitudinal study Mapa de Salud, we employed a novel approach to exploring the risk environment of female sex workers (FSWs) in two Mexico/U.S. border cities, Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. In this paper we describe the development, implementation, and feasibility of a mix of quantitative and qualitative tools used to capture the HIV risk environments of FSWs in an LMIC setting. The methods were: 1) Participatory mapping; 2) Quantitative interviews; 3) Sex work venue field observation; 4) Time-location-activity diaries; 5) In-depth interviews about daily activity spaces. We found that the mixed-methodology outlined was both feasible to implement and acceptable to participants. These methods can generate geospatial data to assess the role of the environment on drug and sexual risk behaviors among high risk populations. Additionally, the adaptation of existing methods for marginalized populations in resource constrained contexts provides new opportunities for informing public health interventions.

SUBMITTER: Conners EE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4871522 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Quantitative, Qualitative and Geospatial Methods to Characterize HIV Risk Environments.

Conners Erin E EE West Brooke S BS Roth Alexis M AM Meckel-Parker Kristen G KG Kwan Mei-Po MP Magis-Rodriguez Carlos C Staines-Orozco Hugo H Clapp John D JD Brouwer Kimberly C KC

PloS one 20160518 5

Increasingly, 'place', including physical and geographical characteristics as well as social meanings, is recognized as an important factor driving individual and community health risks. This is especially true among marginalized populations in low and middle income countries (LMIC), whose environments may also be more difficult to study using traditional methods. In the NIH-funded longitudinal study Mapa de Salud, we employed a novel approach to exploring the risk environment of female sex work ...[more]

PMID: 27191846

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Project description:Methodologically sound mixed methods research can improve our understanding of health services by providing a more comprehensive picture of health services than either method can alone. This study describes the frequency of mixed methods in published health services research and compares the presence of methodological components indicative of rigorous approaches across mixed methods, qualitative, and quantitative articles.All empirical articles (n = 1,651) published between 2003 and 2007 from four top-ranked health services journals.All mixed methods articles (n = 47) and random samples of qualitative and quantitative articles were evaluated to identify reporting of key components indicating rigor for each method, based on accepted standards for evaluating the quality of research reports (e.g., use of p-values in quantitative reports, description of context in qualitative reports, and integration in mixed method reports). We used chi-square tests to evaluate differences between article types for each component.Mixed methods articles comprised 2.85 percent (n = 47) of empirical articles, quantitative articles 90.98 percent (n = 1,502), and qualitative articles 6.18 percent (n = 102). There was a statistically significant difference (?(2) (1) = 12.20, p = .0005, Cramer's V = 0.09, odds ratio = 1.49 [95% confidence interval = 1,27, 1.74]) in the proportion of quantitative methodological components present in mixed methods compared to quantitative papers (21.94 versus 47.07 percent, respectively) but no statistically significant difference (?(2) (1) = 0.02, p = .89, Cramer's V = 0.01) in the proportion of qualitative methodological components in mixed methods compared to qualitative papers (21.34 versus 25.47 percent, respectively).Few published health services research articles use mixed methods. The frequency of key methodological components is variable. Suggestions are provided to increase the transparency of mixed methods studies and the presence of key methodological components in published reports.

Dataset Information

Quantitative, Qualitative and Geospatial Methods to Characterize HIV Risk Environments.

Publications

Quantitative, Qualitative and Geospatial Methods to Characterize HIV Risk Environments.

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