COVID-19, science, vaccines and family in a multi origin Latinx population in South Florida.

During the Spring of 2021 in Miami-Dade County, four virtual focus groups were held with 31 participants from four diverse local Latinx communities as part of the Florida Community Engagement Alliance (FL-CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities project. The main objective was to explore attitudes about COVID-19 information and prevention strategies among South Florida's diverse Latinx populations, across a broad geographical area. The study used a semi-structured focus group qualitative design and chose participants from four well established Latinx neighborhoods.

Associations of Objective and Perceived Neighborhood Ethnic Density on Hazardous Alcohol Use among Latinx Emerging Adults.

: Emerging adulthood is an important time where substance use often peaks. Neighborhood Latinx ethnic density could be protective against negative health behaviors. Most studies on neighborhood ethnic density have focused on census-level aggregate measures, however perception of the neighborhood ethnic density could differ from objectively measured neighborhood density.

Psychosocial stress, bicultural identity integration, and bicultural self-efficacy among Hispanic emerging adults.

Most studies on psychosocial stress among Hispanics have focused on risk factors. To better understand psychosocial stress among this population, this study aimed to examine components of bicultural identity integration and bicultural self-efficacy, that may be associated with lower psychosocial stress among Hispanic emerging adults (ages 18-25). This aim was tested on a cross-sectional sample of Hispanic emerging adults (M = 21.

An institutional ethnography of prevention and treatment services for substance use disorders in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is thought to have significant epidemics of illicit drug use but lacks surveillance and formal analyses of the policy context of drug prevention and treatment services. We conducted an institutional ethnography of 15 drug service organisations in Santo Domingo and Boca Chica, Dominican Republic, to explore barriers and resources for drug abuse prevention and treatment. Here, we present a typology of drug service organisations based on their services, methods, and approach.

An ethnographic study of 'touristic escapism' and health vulnerability among Dominican male tourism workers.

Health research on tourism has expanded over the past two decades, focusing on understanding how the social, economic, and political configuration of tourism zones might contribute to health vulnerabilities among the diverse populations that interact in these areas. While there are few studies of HIV and drug use interactions in the region, research has indicated that these two outcomes are often interwoven in tourism zones, potentially producing 'syndemics' of HIV infection and problematic drug use. One framework that has been used in public health research on tourism is one that we refer to as touristic escapism or situational disinhibition that may be heightened for some tourists while on vacation, potentially leading to the abandonment of normative constraints on behaviour and contributing to health risks such as unprotected sex or binge drinking.

Adaptation of PhotoVoice methodology to promote policy dialog among street-based drug users in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Background: Like other epidemics, the current heroin epidemic in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is a largely invisible and devastating social problem linked to numerous structural and social determinants of health.

Methods: In this article, we connect a community-based participatory research methodology - "PhotoVoice" - with the theoretical orientation of critical medical anthropology to identify local interpretations of complex social and structural factors that are most salient to the well-being of local Dominican populations affected by drug addiction.

Results: Specifically, we describe Proyecto Lentes (Lens Project), a PhotoVoice initiative launched in 2014, which brought together active drug users to visually unveil and critically analyze the micro- and macro-factors shaping the marginalized and stigmatized drug addiction epidemic in Santo Domingo.

Tourism Labor, Embodied Suffering, and the Deportation Regime in the Dominican Republic.

In this article, we use syndemic theory to examine socio-structural factors that result in heightened vulnerability to HIV infection and drug addiction among Dominican deportees who survive post-deportation through informal tourism labor. Through an ongoing NIDA-funded ethnographic study of the syndemic of HIV and problematic drug use among men involved in tourism labor in the Dominican Republic, we argue that the legal and political-economic context of the global deportation regime contributes to structural vulnerabilities among deportees in the Dominican Republic, most of whom are men with histories of incarceration in the United States and/or Puerto Rico. While Dominican laws and institutional practices work conjointly with foreign policies to reconfigure non-criminal deportees as hardened criminals unworthy of full citizenship rights, the informal tourism economy provides one of the few absorption points for male deportee labor, linking the deportation regime directly to the Caribbean tourism industry.

Methods of mapping ethnographic data on migration, tourism labor, and health risk in the Dominican Republic.

This paper focuses on a mixed-method approach to quantifying qualitative data from the results of an ongoing NIDA-funded ethnographic study entitled "Migration, Tourism, and the HIV/Drug-Use Syndemic in the Dominican Republic". This project represents the first large-scale mixed method study to identify social, structural, environmental, and demographic factors that may contribute to ecologies of health vulnerability within the Caribbean tourism zones. Our research has identified deportation history as a critical factor contributing to vulnerability to HIV, drugs, mental health problems, and other health conditions.