Working with Excluded Populations in HIV: Hard to Reach or Out of Sight?

This book challenges the notion that marginalized and vulnerable populations are difficult to access and reach and provides successful approaches to working with these communities using case examples from HIV research. It emphasizes the need to address social factors that result in decisions to not engage in research and to disrupt the ways in which people are conceptualized as 'hard to reach'.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 156 pages
Publication date: 07 July 2022
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This book, written decades into the HIV epidemic, critically examines the notion that socially excluded populations often targeted in HIV research are indeed challenging to access and engage. The author broadly applies the concept of 'hard to reach' to describe populations that researchers find difficult to connect with. The concept of 'hard to reach' does not capture the social factors that contribute to marginalization and ultimately lead individuals to choose not to participate in research. Limited attention has been given to how researchers can address the social factors that lead to decisions not to engage in research. There is a need to disrupt the ways in which people are conceptualized as 'hard to reach' to refocus on transforming social systems and personal values, beliefs, and approaches. This book employs case examples based on HIV research with Indigenous youth, internally displaced women, LGBTQ communities in the Global North and Global South, and individuals at the intersection of these identities to identify successful approaches to working with marginalized and often vulnerable communities and groups. The chapters emphasize the importance of considering five key social factors when developing successful approaches: context and storytelling; cultural humility; critical hope; imagination and possibility; and love, intimate inquiry, and the beloved community. If nations, individuals, and communities are to address the epidemic in a sustainable and impactful way, these factors must be given due attention.

Weight: 273g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030770501
Edition number: 1st ed. 2021