When Communities Assess their AIDS Epidemics is a detailed ethnographic description of the AIDS epidemic in ten U.S. cities and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Employing a rapid ethnographic assessment methodology, cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific have implemented Project RARE (Rapid Assessment, Response, and Evaluation) efforts. These RARE projects examine the moving edge of the AIDS epidemic through descriptions of high-risk sites and identifications of segments of the populations at greatest risk. Utilizing a series of focus groups and street interviews, local field research teams gain an insider's perspective on HIV risk within social contexts. Dr. Benjamin P. Bowser, Dr. Ernest Quimby, and Dr. Merrill Singer have compiled these critical studies that analyze current conditions, challenges, and recommendations encountered by RARE. When Communities Assess their AIDS Epidemics is a powerful and engaging text that will appeal to those interested in public health and anthropology.

The practice of curanderismo, or Mexican American folk medicine, is part of a historically and culturally important health care system deeply rooted in native Mexican healing techniques. This is the first book to describe the practice from an insider's point of view, based on the authors' three-year apprenticeships with curanderos (healers). Robert T. Trotter and Juan Antonio Chavira present an intimate view of not only how curanderismo is practiced but also how it is learned and passed on as a healing tradition. By providing a better understanding of why curanderos continue to be in demand despite the lifesaving capabilities of modern medicine, this text will serve as an indispensable resource to health professionals who work within Mexican American communities, to students of transcultural medicine, and to urban ethnologists and medical anthropologists.

When Communities Assess their AIDS Epidemics is a detailed ethnographic description of the AIDS epidemic in ten U.S. cities and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Employing a rapid ethnographic assessment methodology, cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific have implemented Project RARE (Rapid Assessment, Response, and Evaluation) efforts. These RARE projects examine the moving edge of the AIDS epidemic through descriptions of high-risk sites and identifications of segments of the populations at greatest risk. Utilizing a series of focus groups and street interviews, local field research teams gain an insider's perspective on HIV risk within social contexts. Dr. Benjamin P. Bowser, Dr. Ernest Quimby, and Dr. Merrill Singer have compiled these critical studies that analyze current conditions, challenges, and recommendations encountered by RARE. When Communities Assess their AIDS Epidemics is a powerful and engaging text that will appeal to those interested in public health and anthropology.