Sociology Department and Urban Community Research Center, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, CA 90747, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2013 May;103(5):849-52. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.300988. Epub 2013 Mar 14.
We examined the effectiveness of peer ethnography to gain insider views on substance use and sex among a diverse range of high-risk substance-using Black and Latino young men who have sex with men.
We recruited 9 peer ethnographers aged 21 to 24 years from youth programs for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Los Angeles, California, and trained them in ethnography, study protocol, and human participant protection. Peer ethnographers collected 137 single-spaced pages of field notes in 2009 and 2010 derived from observation of 150 members of the target population.
Peer ethnography revealed local language and phrasing and provided a window into new and different social contexts. Peers provided valuable information on current trends in substance use, revealing themes that needed to be addressed in further research, such as the use of substances during sex to "clock coin" (exchange sex for money and substances). These data enabled us to refine our recruitment strategies and ask more culturally relevant questions in a later phase of the study.
The peer ethnography method can provide a sound basis for further research phases in multistage studies on numerous other social issues and with other hard-to-reach populations.
我们研究了同伴民族志在深入了解不同风险的黑人和拉丁裔男男性行为者的物质使用和性行为方面的有效性。
我们从加利福尼亚州洛杉矶的女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋和跨性别者社区的青年项目中招募了 9 名年龄在 21 至 24 岁之间的同伴民族志学者，并对他们进行了民族志、研究方案和人类参与者保护方面的培训。同伴民族志学者在 2009 年和 2010 年期间共收集了 137 页单倍行距的实地笔记，这些笔记来源于对目标人群中的 150 名成员的观察。
同伴民族志揭示了当地的语言和措辞，并提供了一个了解新的和不同社会背景的窗口。同伴们提供了有关物质使用当前趋势的宝贵信息，揭示了需要在进一步研究中解决的主题，例如在性行为中使用物质来“计时硬币”（用性交换金钱和物质）。这些数据使我们能够改进我们的招募策略，并在研究的后期阶段提出更具文化相关性的问题。
同伴民族志方法可以为多阶段研究中关于许多其他社会问题和其他难以接触的人群的进一步研究阶段提供可靠的基础。
