Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #111541

Harriet M. Phinney, PhD, MPH, Anthropology Department, University of Washington, Denny Hall, Box 353100, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98115-3100, 202.543.5240, hphinney@u.washington.edu and Minh Huu Nguyen, PhD, Institute of Sociology, Vice Director, National Center for Social and Human Sciences of Vietnam, 27 Tran Xuan Soan, Ha Noi, Vietnam.

Topic: This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study exploring married women's HIV risk in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. This study explored how emerging ideals of marital love combine with gender inequality and other forms of social stratification to put married women at risk of HIV infection. Methods: Data collection involved 22 marital case histories, 12 key informant interviews, archival research on popular culture, and 6 months participant observation focused on family life in a rapidly changing urban society and men's extra-familial socializing behaviors. Findings: Many married men in Ha Noi, particularly those with disposable incomes, have or do engage in extramarital sex. There are three types of women with which a man may have sexual relations: his wife, his lover, and a sex worker. Men do not consider having sex with sex workers to be inconsistent with their love for their wives. Some married men have sex with men. Economic factors (work place prestige systems, gendered economic opportunity structures, and women's financial dependence on their husbands) combine with socio-cultural factors (masculinizing practices, shifting yet conventional logic of gendered sexualities, kinship organization, women's social dependence on their marital status, and new sexual imaginings) to put married women increasingly at risk of contracting HIV from their husbands. Implications: In Ha Noi, men's extramarital sex is a structural aspect of society. In order to effectively prevent HIV marital transmission, interventions need to take into account the structural sources of married women's HIV risk.

Learning Objectives: After having listened to this presentation, audience members will be able to

• Describe the methods used in the ethnographic research project.
• Discuss the types of information gained from such a methodological approach.
• List the primary kinds of extramarital relationships in which men in the community engage, including their HIV risk behaviors.
• Articulate the economic opportunity structures and socio-cultural factors contributing to men’s extramarital sexual behavior in this urban setting.
• Discuss the implications of these findings for public health policy as they pertain to the structure of married women’s HIV risk

Keywords: Gender, HIV/AIDS

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation