Pagano Anna, Lee Juliet P, García Victor, Recarte Carlos
a Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation , Oakland , California.
b Indiana University of Pennsylvania , Indiana , Pennsylvania.
J Ethn Subst Abuse. 2018 Jan-Mar;17(1):79-90. doi: 10.1080/15332640.2017.1362726. Epub 2017 Oct 16.
Access to study populations is a major concern for drug use and treatment researchers. Spaces related to drug use and treatment have varying levels of researcher accessibility based on several issues, including legality, public versus private settings, and insider/outsider status. Ethnographic research methods are indispensable for gaining and maintaining access to hidden or "hard-to-reach" populations. Here, we discuss our long-term ethnographic research on drug abuse recovery houses created by and for Latino migrants and immigrants in Northern California. We take our field work experiences as a case study to examine the problem of researcher access and how ethnographic strategies can be successfully applied to address it, focusing especially on issues of entrée, building rapport, and navigating field-specific challenges related to legality, public/private settings, and insider/outsider status. We conclude that continued funding support for ethnography is essential for promoting health disparities research focused on diverse populations in recovery from substance use disorders.
接触研究人群是药物使用和治疗研究人员的一个主要关注点。与药物使用和治疗相关的场所，由于包括合法性、公共与私人环境以及内部人/外部人身份等几个问题，研究人员进入的难易程度各不相同。人种志研究方法对于接触和维持对隐藏或“难以接触到”的人群的研究至关重要。在此，我们讨论我们对北加利福尼亚州由拉丁裔移民创建并为他们服务的药物滥用康复之家进行的长期人种志研究。我们以我们的实地工作经验为案例研究，来审视研究人员进入的问题以及人种志策略如何能够成功应用以解决该问题，特别关注进入途径、建立融洽关系以及应对与合法性、公共/私人环境和内部人/外部人身份相关的特定领域挑战等问题。我们得出结论，对人种志研究的持续资金支持对于促进关注物质使用障碍康复的不同人群的健康差异研究至关重要。
