ABSTRACT
Research and scholarship within the social sciences on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have transitioned from focusing exclusively on risk groups within the early days of learning about the virus, to individual risk behaviors, and then finally to the role social environments play in encouraging or hindering HIV transmission. One of the more recent research frameworks, referred to as “social ecology,” highlights a growing awareness of the role of social, structural/institutional, and environmental influences on HIV risk behaviors (Friedman et al. 2009; Jones and Moon 1993; Kearns 1993; Latkin et al. 2010; Latkin and Knowlton 2005; Parker et al. 2000; Pope et al. 2008; Tobin et al. 2010). These approaches are particularly salient for the field of health geography because they have delved into more nuanced ways of understanding how places constitute, as well as contain, social relations and physical resources.
