Many Voices in Dialogue: Translating Research Evidence Into Community-Based HIV Interventions

Abstract

This applied research project responds to a critical problem in health and development: how to effectively translate our research evidence to the communities with and for whom we work in order to stimulate successful, sustainable health promotion activities and social change. The tangible product of this research is a handbook for health and outreach workers from immigrant communities from the Horn of Africa living in Toronto. The handbook is a resource which will be used as a starting point for the generation of community-based health initiatives, in this case, HIV/AIDS prevention programs. The research applies a conceptual approach which emphasizes participatory action research theory and methodology, and equitable, transcontextual research partnerships. It uses a model which merges both scientific evidence and experiential (ethnographic) evidence of risk and vulnerability to create new understandings on which to base the development of health programs. Stories, grounded in ethnographic evidence, are at the heart of the research strategy. The handbook is an example of experimental ethnographic writing: dialogue is used to communicate research evidence, health, and skills information; and a number of personal narrative:s have been constructed as resources to help health workers generate dialogue on issues of risk and vulnerability, and begin a process of reflection and action. In a larger context, the lessons learned as this work is implemented and evaluated in the community will contribute to the knowledge of intervention science. The research also serves as an example of ethical anthropology and raises for discussion ethnography's future project at the tum of the century. With attention to how anthropologists represent their work, 'moral ethnography' can serve a larger human project, helping us better understand what it is to be human and stimulating moral conversations about how we want to live.