NCJ Number
126785
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography Volume: 19 Issue: 3 Dated: (October 1990) Pages: 322-348
Date Published
1990
Length
27 pages
Annotation
Drug injection is the second most common way of spreading and contracting AIDS.
Abstract
Community health outreach workers (CHOWs) work with drug users on their own terms and turf, discover the community from the members' point of view, form relationships, and establish credibility in a difficult and distrustful environment in contrast to conventional programs which rely heavily on theoretical understanding and take a more passive stance. An outreach project in San Francisco consisting of 22 CHOWs studied some of the 15,000 Bay Area drug injectors, their sexual partners, prostitutes, and other at-risk populations. The main problem for CHOWs is the tendency to become too involved rather than maintaining the necessary detachment to do the job. From December 1989 15 of 33 CHOWs quit or were fired. The most successful CHOWs tend to be persons who had been immersed into the drug scene and since abandoned that lifestyle, but can still relate to it in order to help clients. 20 references