New perspectives on the social and economic contexts of HIV/AIDS infection

The disparate incidence of HIV infection suggests that groups that have been socially or economically marginalized are particularly vulnerable. For Celeste Watkins-Hayes, the interplay between structural factors and individual behaviors in poor neighborhoods, identified by sociologists like William Julius Wilson, play a critical role. Residential segregation, past and current racial discrimination, the targeted marketing of legal and illegal drugs in low-income communities, inadequate health care, and limited economic resources are all factors that conspire to perpetuate joblessness, drug sale and use, sex work, high incarceration rates, homelessness, and mental and physical illnesses among vulnerable urban and rural residents.