The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the health care seeking behaviors of rural, southern black adults (RSB). Description of health seeking behaviors from the perspective of RSB adults is imperative to ensure the health care system accommodates this vulnerable population and thus decreases the health disparities addressed in Healthy People 2000. Two research questions are addressed. They are 1) What patterns of seeking health care are employed by RSB adults? , and 2) What are RSB adults perspectives on health in general and their own health status, specifically? The sample will consist of black adults over age eighteen, who reside in a predominantly black, rural county in South Carolina. Initial subjects will be recruited from a black church in the county. additional participants will be recruited with the assistance of the initial subjects using a snowball sampling technique. Subjects will be interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide developed by the investigator and an experienced qualitative researcher. Interviews will be tape recorded and transcribed. Analysis of data will be accomplished using content analysis. Category creation for content analysis will be guided by the data. The PRQ85 (Weinert, 1987) will be used to collect information regarding social structure. Additionally, demographic information will be collected. Quantitative data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics.
