ABSTRACT
Understanding how context relates to risk behaviours has been a central concern in social science and public health research. The issue is especially salient in migration studies since migration by definition entails an often dramatic change in context that can have a profound impact on well-being. Despite its significance, research connecting migration and HIV has often overlooked the relationship between context and risk behaviours. The bulk of HIV research tends to follow individualistic behavioural models (Organista et al. 2004) which cannot account for the considerable variation in risk behaviours according to where migrants reside. As such, the social mechanisms mediating the association between migration and HIV remain unclear. In this study we follow a contextual approach to HIV risk among Latino
migrants to the USA, examining the neighbourhood context of reception and its connection with the concentration of risks. Building on classical and contemporary social disorganization theory we show that immigrants’ exposure to HIV risk does not occur in a vacuum but rather concentrates across well-defined neighbourhoods in conjunction with other health risks and structural disadvantages. The empirical analysis combines quantitative and qualitative information col-
lected across 32 Latino migrants receiving neighbourhoods in Durham/Carrboro, North Carolina. The analytic strategy is to describe the considerable variation in neighbourhood contexts of reception and their association with health risks. Results show that macro-level forces associated with immigration policies and the structural position of Latino populations in the USA undergird much of immigrants’ exposure to health risks, and that identifying the neighbourhoods’ concentrating disadvantages can be particularly instrumental for more localized and cost-effective interventions aimed at reducing HIV transmission among migrants.
