The Challenges, Academic Potential, and Personal Power of Qualitative Research
Gabrielle Aufderheide – Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, Biology
Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin, Jessica Cronce
Data Story Session 1CS
Research Area: Public Health
I performed qualitative interviews with ten individuals from the HIV Alliance in Eugene, Oregon to investigate how the agency employs the harm reduction philosophy when providing services and how this impacts their clients who inject drugs. The stories interviewees recalled and the vocabulary they used provided insight to their understanding and implementation of harm reduction. I felt unsuccessful at relaying the profundity of information I obtained from the interviews. However, the information greatly impacted how I did interpret my research and influenced my own definition of harm reduction and my overall opinion on harm reduction interventions targeting HIV prevention.