This essay explores ways in which the qualitative interview can provide contexts for women to name their experiences of oppression, reconstruct the meanings they attach to them, and channel their stories of navigating harm to promote the health of others.

Black women experience myriad challenges post incarceration, from managing stigma within social relationships to navigating surveillance when interfacing with service systems. It is these challenges that also make them vulnerable participants in community-based research. This study explores how 28 justice-involved Black women experience the research process.

Intersectionality is a critical tool for understanding how socially constructed categories shape multiple dimensions of lived experience. In this study, we apply an intersectional lens to explore how women of color from two different contexts, Hyderabad, India and Chicago, Illinois, manage gendered forms of stigma and oppression as they converge with other devalued statuses, namely living with HIV or having a history of drug use or incarceration.

Formerly incarcerated women face diverse challenges to re-entry, which include recovering from health illnesses and trauma to navigating various systems of stigma and surveillance. It is these multilevel challenges to reintegration that also make formerly incarcerated women vulnerable participants in research. As such, this qualitative study explores how 28 formerly incarcerated Black women experience the research interview process.

While current ethical procedures aim to minimize risks to imprisoned individuals, there is heightened awareness of the need to protect those who participate in research post-incarceration while under community-based supervision. Formerly incarcerated women, in particular, face myriad challenges to community reintegration which also make them vulnerable participants in research. As such, this study explores how 28 formerly incarcerated Black women experience the qualitative research process.

There is limited functional knowledge and utilization of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among young adult Black cisgender women (YBW). We conducted four focus groups with YBW using an intersectional framework to explore multiple levels of factors that impede YBW awareness, interest, and utilization of PrEP in conjunction with their sexual and reproductive healthcare needs.

The purpose of this case study is to examine contemporary issues related to prostitution courts using Bronstein’s model of interprofessional collaborative framework which identifies five components that facilitate optimum IPC: 1) interdependence, 2)newly created professional activities, 3)flexibility, 4)collective ownership of goals, and 5) reflection on the process.

This paper explores how intrapersonal and structural oppression may impact treatment and the recovery process of 23 self-identified African-American women with histories of incarceration and substance use. Using a Critical Consciousness (CC) framework, researchers used content-based thematic analysis to systematically code and extract themes and patterns from focus group data to evaluate how marginalizing processes - such as race-based discrimination - impact treatment, the therapeutic relationship and service provision.

Exiting prostitution is an often complicated, arduous process. Many barriers constrain women’s movement out of prostitution. Factors such as stigma are rarely examined. Utilizing a case study approach, semistructured interviews were conducted with 14 SEPP prostitution court participants and eight professionals working with participants, to understand the ways in which stigma affected the exiting process among women with extensive histories of prostitution.

Changes in identity are critical to managing transitions to recovery from substance and alcohol addictions. Identity change is particularly important for mothers, whose recovery processes are often in the context of critical but complex family relationships and societal expectations. But research and practice often underestimate the relational dimensions that promote or inhibit changes in one's identity during recovery. Here we analyze data from a study that involved interviews with 30 formerly incarcerated women participating in a community-based substance use treatment program in the Midwest.

This essay explores the politics of voice and representation in anti-oppressive qualitative research. Using an example from one author’s research on stigma management among formerly incarcerated women, and the particularly pernicious stigma women faced if they had engaged in sex work, we detail the benefits and pitfalls of either re-presenting research participants in their exact words or changing participants’ words, a process we refer to as re-languaging.

Significant previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma when interacting with the public sphere and service agencies; the purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how formerly incarcerated mothers with histories of substance use experience stigmas from their intimate relationships with family and romantic partners.

Young people from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in the U.S. are engaging in opioid and injection drug use (IDU) in substantial numbers, paralleling nationwide trends. Yet opioid-using FSU immigrants face distinctive acculturation challenges, including perceived stigmatization as drug users within their immigrant communities, which may exacerbate the negative health and psychosocial consequences of such use.

This qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with 26 FSU immigrant young adults (ages 18-29) living in New York City who reported opioid use in the past month and/or were currently in treatment for opioid use disorder.

Knowledge of pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep) continues to remain scarce among Black women who are disproportionally affected by hiv in the United States. A thematic analysis of open-ended questions from a sample of Black women (n=119) who completed a mix-methods, online, e-health study was conducted to examine the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using prep.

This grounded theory study explores how women with histories of addiction perceive stigma while in treatment. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 women participating in a residential drug treatment center.

Mental health court (MHC) participation is associated with reduced recidivism and increased access to services but there is little empirical support for the factors that impact outcomes. Previous research supports the importance of social support in recovery and reducing criminal recidivism for populations similar to the population served by MHCs. This research project used mixed-methodology to explore MHC participant perceptions (n = 26) of factors important in recovery and estimated the associations between social support and outcomes (n = 80)