I propose continuing a comprehensive, social history and ethonographic analysis of community health outreach as it is being crucially employed in combating the spread of AID among intravenous drug-users and their sexual partners. The site of the study is the Mid-City Consortium to Combat AIDS in San Francisco. I.V. drug users comprise the second largest group at risk for AIDS in the U.S., and many outreach projects across the country are being planned or already operating for working directly with this group. The SF. Project appears to be serving as a prototype after which projects in other cities are modeling themselves. The research is focusing on two problem areas: (1) how is the S.. Project designed to train, supervise and sponsor the activities of outreach workers in the community; (2) how do outreach workers access and cultivate relationships with i.v. drug users and their sexual partners, and with other workers and the project as a whole attempt to evaluate their own effectiveness, what future do outreach workers see in their work as a career, and what """"""""working philosophies' do outreach workers hold toward the project and their own outreach efforts? My research assistants and I are presently collecting data via participant observation and field-based interviewing. We have observed the process through which outreach workers are recruited and, along with new recruits, we under went the project's outreach training program. We are now accompanying outreach workers on a systematic basis as they work in key, targeted areas of the city. In order to collect data on the lived experience of conducting outreach among i.v. drug users and others, we are actually doing the work. We are also attending staff meetings, meetings with community groups, and directly observing the ways in which the project directors administer, supervise, and evaluate the outreach program. Formal, open-ended interviewing is also being conducted with all relevant project staff on the dynamics and problems of conducting outreach to combat AIDS within high risk, heavily stigmatized populations.
