The Society for Applied Anthropology has begun posting podcasts of selected sessions from the 2009 conference; they include one which may be of particular interest to our readers: “Studies of HIV and STIs in the Western Hemisphere.” The session is divided into two parts, available here and here.

Here’s the abstract for the session:

Patient Narratives on What Constitutes Meaningful HIV Prevention Counseling. Talking about sexual practices, preferences and problems during a routine clinical encounter is not common. In fact, many patients and healthcare providers report feeling uncomfortable managing even a cursory discussion of sex. Moreover, for people living with HIV, frank discussions about sexual expression with a healthcare provider are complicated by legal issues, concerns about feeling judged, and the underlying belief that such discussions are incongruent within the medical setting. Through ethnographic interviews with HIV specialty care providers and their patients we explored the “black box” of meaningful prevention discussions.