In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

187 Appendix A Methodological Process Data for this book were drawn from two sequential studies on methamphetamine use in the suburbs funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The first study used a cross-sectional design; the second study was a longitudinal design that included the baseline component of the first study with the addition of follow-up interviews and focus groups. The goal of the first study was to gain a better understanding of emerging trends among methamphetamine users in the suburbs, focusing on how users initiate, maintain, moderate, remit or resume use of methamphetamine over the life course. When preliminary analysis of the data revealed that the suburban setting increased risk factors for female drug users, I designed a second study to collect additional data to gain a more in-depth understanding of methamphetamine use by suburban women. The specific aims in this study were (1) to expand our exploration of the turning points in drug use trajectories among suburban women; (2) to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the risks and protective factors that impact the transmission of HIV, HCV, and other infectious diseases that may be specific to female methamphetamine users living in the suburbs; and (3) to assess HIV risk awareness, risk behaviors, health care utilization and accessibility over time for women in our sample. I was the principal investigator (PI) on both studies; the second study included a coinvestigator, a nursing professor. A number of research assistants , drawn primarily from undergraduate programs in my university, were trained to help with data collection and analysis. My university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the study methods, and NIDA provided a certificate of confidentiality, which protected study data and researchers from court subpoena. A mixed-methods design was used to collect the data, with a focus on the qualitative component. Mixed-methods designs are relatively new, and norms for data collection and analysis are still in development (Ragin 2008). I employed what is called a concurrent mixed methods design (Teddlie and Yu 2007). Combining both qualitative and quantitative data collection A p p e n d i x A 188 and analysis offers several advantages to conducting research on hidden populations, including greater flexibility, creativity, validity, and reliability (Shaw 2005). Recruitment Active and former (inactive) methamphetamine users were drawn from the suburban counties surrounding a large metropolitan area in southeastern United States through intensive ethnographic fieldwork. Beyond establishing a presence in the community, we used a combination of targeted, snowball, and theoretical sampling methods to find study participants (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1998; Watters and Biernacki 1989). The first study, conducted from 2007 to 2009, enrolled 50 active and 50 inactive users of methamphetamine. Of these 35 were female. The second study, conducted from 2009 to 2011, used the same recruitment methods and added 30 females to the sample of suburban methamphetamine users. Active users were defined as having used methamphetamine at least one time in the past month. Inactive users were defined as having used methamphetamine for at least six consecutive months in the past but not using in the last month. To be eligible, participants had to be residing in the suburbs of the city at the time of use and be eighteen or older at the time of the interview. To ensure a diverse sample, we employed various methods and targeted different social settings during our fieldwork. About one-third of the study participants were recruited through face-to-face contact while we were in the field, and about one-third saw our fliers or were given our research cards and called the study number. The others were recruited through snowball sampling, a method used to reach overlapping networks. Fieldwork Ethnographic research requires the researcher to spend hours in the field to become familiar with the settings and people (Bourgois 2003; SterkElifson 1993). Since our study included a large area of twenty-eight counties, we often employed community consultants, also called outreach workers or key informants, who were people we met while in the field who lived in the community and could provide access to drug-using networks (Lambert, Ashery, and Needle 1995; Shaw 2005). Community consultants helped us by establishing trust through an introduction, or by referring a participant to the study. For example, a community consultant could bring us to insider user settings, where no one would have talked to us had we not been with the consultant (Becker...

Share