Browsing by Subject "Arizona"

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    HIV/AIDS-related institutional mistrust among multiethnic men who have sex with men: effects on HIV testing and risk behaviors.
    (Health Psychol, 2012-05) Hoyt, Michael A; Rubin, Lisa R; Nemeroff, Carol J; Lee, Joyce; Huebner, David M; Proeschold-Bell, Rae Jean
    OBJECTIVE: To investigate relationships between institutional mistrust (systematic discrimination, organizational suspicion, and conspiracy beliefs), HIV risk behaviors, and HIV testing in a multiethnic sample of men who have sex with men (MSM), and to test whether perceived susceptibility to HIV mediates these relationships for White and ethnic minority MSM. METHOD: Participants were 394 MSM residing in Central Arizona (M age = 37 years). Three dimensions of mistrust were examined, including organizational suspicion, conspiracy beliefs, and systematic discrimination. Assessments of sexual risk behavior, HIV testing, and perceived susceptibility to HIV were made at study entry (T1) and again 6 months later (T2). RESULTS: There were no main effects of institutional mistrust dimensions or ethnic minority status on T2 risk behavior, but the interaction of systematic discrimination and conspiracy beliefs with minority status was significant such that higher levels of systematic discrimination and more conspiracy beliefs were associated with increased risk only among ethnic minority MSM. Higher levels of systematic discrimination were significantly related to lower likelihood for HIV testing, and the interaction of organizational suspicion with minority status was significant such that greater levels of organizational suspicion were related to less likelihood of having been tested for HIV among ethnic minority MSM. Perceived susceptibility did not mediate these relationships. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that it is important to look further into the differential effects of institutional mistrust across marginalized groups, including sexual and ethnic minorities. Aspects of mistrust should be addressed in HIV prevention and counseling efforts.
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    “They’ve got power up the waz”: Border Enforcement as Collective Trauma Among Retirees in Southern Arizona
    (2020-04-28) Simpson, Olivia
    Over 3,200 migrants have died in the borderlands of southern Arizona as a result of the last three decades of United Stated border enforcement policy. This project evaluates the impact of violent border enforcement activities, especially these fatal outcomes, on retirees living in the borderlands. Arizona is the second most popular place to move to for retirement, and many of these retirees, seeking low costs of living and quiet communities, end up settling in the borderlands. Unlike migrants themselves, retired residents are predominantly white United States citizens with little prior knowledge or exposure to border enforcement. An analysis of 15 in-depth interviews with retirees living in Arizona revealed that, although these residents are relatively privileged, they are still affected by the violence of border enforcement in their communities. For many of these retirees, the unavoidable and continuous exposure to enforcement activities is even traumatic, affecting their social relationships and in some cases drawing them into humanitarian volunteer work. Retirees that moved to Arizona more recently, in the midst of the escalating border enforcement of the last decade, are more likely to report such experiences.
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    Wetlands as an alternative stable state in desert streams.
    (Ecology, 2008-05) Heffernan, James B
    Historically, desert drainages of the American southwest supported productive riverine wetlands (ciénegas). Region-wide erosion of ciénegas during the late 19th and early 20th century dramatically reduced the abundance of these ecosystems, but recent reestablishment of wetlands in Sycamore Creek, Arizona, USA, provides an opportunity to evaluate the mechanisms underlying wetland development. A simple model demonstrates that density-dependent stabilization of channel substrate by vegetation results in the existence of alternative stable states in desert streams. A two-year (October 2004-September 2006) field survey of herbaceous cover and biomass at 26 sites located along Sycamore Creek is used to test the underlying assumption of this model that vegetation cover loss during floods is density dependent, as well as the prediction that the distribution of vegetation abundance should shift toward bimodality in response to floods. Observations of nonlinear, negative relationships between herbaceous biomass prior to flood events and the proportion of persistent vegetation cover were consistent with the alternative stable state model. In further support of the alternative-state hypothesis, vegetation cover diverged from an approximately normal distribution toward a distinctly bimodal distribution during the monsoon flood season of 2006. These results represent the first empirically supported example of alternative-state behavior in stream ecosystems. Identification of alternative stable states in desert streams supports recent hypotheses concerning the importance of strong abiotic-disturbance regimes and biogeomorphic mechanisms in multiple-state ecosystems.