Graduate student Margaret S. Winchester, with the guidance of Dr. Janet W. McGrath, will undertake ethnographic research on the interactions between multiple determinants of female status and vulnerability under conditions of chronic illness. In an era of gains in access to treatment and lengthened life expectancies, understanding long-term illness experience has become increasingly critical.
The research will be carried out in two sites in Uganda, one urban and one rural. The researcher will take a multiple stakeholders approach to exploring the factors that affect how women experience living with HIV. She will collect data on governmental policy, service provision, and women's experience in the context of HIV treatment. She will interview government representatives and social, medical, and legal service providers. She will conduct a demographic survey of a sample of HIV positive women in each site, supplemented by administering a standard scale on household power relationships. Quantitative data collection will be followed by more intensive interviews with a sub-sample, focusing on utilization of services, gender norms for intimate partner violence, intimate partner violence and treatment, and women's awareness of rights and legal protections.
The research is important because it will contribute to updating hierarchical models of power, by conjoining data from stakeholders and HIV policy makers with the lived experiences of those now living long-term with chronic illness. The research also will help to develop policies to remove subtle barriers to effective treatment over the long run. Finally, the research supports the graduate education of a social scientist.
