Ethnicity and Health Care Delivery

This pre-AIDS era ethnography and evaluation study of two sexually transmitted infection clinics on Long Island, New York is as relevant today as it was when presented as a doctoral dissertation back in 1981. The numerous case studies give a very human face to the crisis of STIs that was rapidly growing in the years leading up to the advent of AIDS. It is learned that attitudes toward the clinics, the doctors, and the nurses differ not just among whites, blacks, and Hispanics, but also among different white ethnic groups, as well. Most of the policy recommendations are as valid today, if not more so, as they were when they were first made. This is the first ethnography by an anthropologist of STI clinics in the United States, and it is destined to become a classic in this field.