UIC School of Public Health
2005 Sponsored Activities Annual Report

FACULTY PROFILE

Jesus Ramirez-Valles, PhD
Associate Professor
Community Health Sciences

You don’t hear me talking about my dad very much because, again, he was there, but he wasn’t there. I guess he identified who I was at early age. He was the first to know about my gay and bisexual tendencies or sexual behavior. He picked up on that when I was very young. To put it straight, he abandoned me indirectly, subtly… What I know is that in his eyes, he didn’t accept it and he kind of distanced himself. I was his favorite. I was the baby, and when he discovered that … he just changed towards me when he knew.

My life as a public health professional and researcher has been focused on HIV and AIDS, stigmatization, community organizing and activism. When I arrived at the School of Public Health, I began a long-term research project to reduce stigma towards homosexuality and HIV/AIDS as a means to prevent sexual risk behaviors among Latino gay and bisexual men and transgender persons (GBT). Latino GBTs continue to experience high rates of sexual risk behaviors and HIV. The stigma towards HIV/AIDS and homosexuality is one of the underlying causes for those persisting high rates. This stigma leads to unsafe sex and HIV infection through its effects on self-esteem, social support, and access to information and resources. Although negative attitudes towards gay men and people living with HIV/AIDS have decreased, many GBTs still encounter stigma. For Latino GBTs this has particularly severe consequences, because they also face the stigma of race and immigration. Yet, research and public health activities to address this stigma are lacking.

But Latino GBTs, like other marginalized groups, cannot solely be defined as victims. Many Latino GBTs have found, and continue to find, means of coping with stigma and changing its sources. One of these means is community involvement, in the form of activism and volunteerism. Thus, through an NIH research grant, my research team and I have been studying community involvement in AIDS- and GBT-related organizations as a protective mechanism for HIV/AIDS sexual risk behavior among Latino GBTs in Chicago and San Francisco.

As a part of our research efforts, we collected 80 life histories from volunteers and activists in the AIDS movement. These data helped us understand the precursors, processes, and outcomes of community involvement. We developed a theoretical framework and several measures to empirically test the effects of community involvement on sexual risk behavior. Currently, I am completing a book-length manuscript based on those life histories titled, “Compañeros: Activism, Race, and Sexuality in the Time of AIDS.” The term compañeros captures the heart of community involvement: peers, friends, and comrades with whom we walk on a path together, with whom we are tied by solidarity and obligation.

To empirically test the effects of community involvement, we collected data from a sample of 643 Latino GBTs in San Francisco and Chicago. We used two methodological innovations in this process. First, we collected data using computer-assisted self-interviewing in both English and Spanish. Second, we recruited the sample using Respondent-Driven Sampling, which is a chain-referral process that allows us to make generalizations about the population from which the sample was gathered. These two innovations were recently published as featured articles in the journal AIDS & Behavior.

The life histories of activists and volunteers led my research team and me to the development of an educational documentary film. Through the life histories we learned that the stigmatization endured by Latino GBTs originates, primarily, in the family, schools, and religious institutions, particularly during childhood, as the opening quote from one activist illustrates. In collaboration with Juneteenth Productions, we obtained an NIH grant to develop, produce, and test a documentary film to be used as a tool to decrease stigmatization of HIV/AIDS and gender non-conformity among Latinos. The film features the lives of four Latino GBTs, activists and volunteers in AIDS and GBT-related issues and targets, primarily, Latino youth. The film is entitled “Tal Como Somos” (Just as We Are) and is being shot in four U.S. cities and in Latin-America.

Copyright 2006 Contact jckong@uic.edu for questions