Immigration and Health
Landscapes of Care in Rural America
Eastern Shore of Maryland
2014-present
This project seeks to ethnographically explore how undocumented status and other forms of social exclusion—race/ethnicity, gender, and nationality—work together to impede undocumented immigrants’ access to health in rural Maryland. This work advances theory of how the institutionalization of undocumented status, created by immigration policies, has contributed to the growing restriction of basic welfare benefits including health and social services and how it impacts the landscape of care in rural settings.
Structural Racism, Policy, and Occupational Health
Research Employing Environmental Systems and Occupational Health Policy Analysis to Interrupt the Impact of Structural Racism on Agricultural Workers and Their Respiratory Health
Eastern Shore of Maryland
2014-present
This is a large 5-year interdisciplinary research project that explores how structural racism, through historical and contemporary institutional policies and practices, affects health outcomes among migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Combining environmental health, systems dynamics, and legal analysis, the research is designed to inform policies and best practices to improve the livelihood of essential farmworkers.
Social Determinants of HIV/STIs among Latinx Farmworkers
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, GA
2009-2012
This research involved the use of rapid ethnographic assessments (REA), a qualitative method of data collection best used to assess quickly a variety of complex public health issues with the purpose of informing intervention and prevention programmatic needs, to address the social determinants of sexual health and HIV/sexually transmitted infection related disparities.
Projects included: (1) the design of a toolkit for REA that addresses community and structural level factors potentially contributing to high rates of HIV/sexually transmitted infections, (2) the implementation of three REAs addressing policy, economic, and social- level factors contributing to high HIV/sexually transmitted infection rates in vulnerable Black and Latino populations in Arizona, North Carolina, and Louisiana, and (3) the training of public health professionals in conducting REAs.
Public Health Surveillance, HIV Prevention, and Haitians
Miami, Florida & Haiti
2004-2008
This ethnographic study explored the “success” of HIV prevention campaigns targeting racial and ethnic minorities in clinical and public health settings in South Florida and their effects on the Haitian community in particular. Through this work, I documented how medical, epidemiological, and social constructions of HIV/AIDS risk fuse notions of pathology with racial and cultural differences. I also highlighted the specific problems facing diverse immigrant and ethnic populations, and revealed that Haitians strategically identify with various institutions and diseases in order to access critical resources.