Use of ethnography in the evaluation and targeting of HIV/AIDS education among Latino farm workers.

Ethnography can be utilized to assess the impact of HIV/AIDS education simultaneous with the implementation of program activities. An ethnographic analysis based on field methods adapted in a Michigan program that targets migrant farmworkers highlights responses to showings of a bilingual AIDS education video; the things to which migrants attend while they are interacting with the educator and each other in HIV education presentations; the tactics they employ to direct discussion when talking about HIV/AIDS, and the manner in which they use language to "distance" themselves from the topic of HIV infection and AIDS. Migrants in Michigan experience the same risks to health as farmworkers in other states; their pay is low, their hours are long, and the time they spend in the state is seasonal (summer). They engage in risk behavior while in the state (primarily consensual/contracted sex). Some migrants through use of drugs may come closer to exposure to the HIV virus outside the state than when they are working as migrants in Michigan.