Bronwen Lichtenstein

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Alabama

The 2020 CARES Act provided mortgage relief to financially distressed borrowers whose loans were insured by the U.S. government. We used cumulative disadvantage theory to examine the effects of mortgage relief in a Deep South County with a history of racial disparities in mortgage lending and homeownership. We collected property and open-access dat...

Divorce is a life-changing event with financial implications for women. Although large-scale studies have examined the factors associated with financial coping after divorce, little attention has been paid to the lived experience of women over time. In this study, we used mixed methods to examine the financial well-being of divorced women over 20 y...

The racial gap in U.S. homeownership has widened since the recession of 2007–2011, partly because of housing loss from foreclosure. This study uses cumulative disadvantage theory to analyse the racial dimensions of home foreclosure activity across neighbourhoods in a Southern county. The methods involved collecting and analysing 1013 foreclosures i...

Divorce proceedings often involve splitting the marital home and contested claims over property and other assets. This case study examines the divorce–foreclosure nexus through key informant interviews, analysis of divorce files and foreclosure notices, and a review of court records on debt, remarriage, and criminal offending. We found that propert...

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the general and sexual health of long-haul truck drivers in the United States. Methods: Drivers were recruited from company sites and truck stops in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi. A sample of 266 drivers was assessed for lifestyle activities; body mass index and blood pressure were meas...

Tuberculosis Bacilli (TB) is a global scourge that affects poor people and regions. Drawing on Farmer’s (2003) pathologies of power, and a case study approach, we examine the sociostructural landscape of a fatal outbreak of Sharecropper’s TB among African Americans in rural Alabama. In a mixed-method qualitative approach involving oral history, sur...

Older homeowners have faced financial pressures since the Great Recession of 2007–2011, including from mortgages that are carried into retirement. In order to chart the postrecession impact of housing loss among older homeowners at a granular level, I used municipal and archival sources to analyze 484 households involving 784 foreclosees in a racia...

HIV disproportionately affects young Black men who have sex with men in the USA, with especially high rates in the Deep South. In this Alabama study, we interviewed 24 pairs of young Black men who have sex with men aged 19–24 and their close friends (n = 48) about sexual scripts, dating men and condom use. Three main themes emerged from the study:...

HIV-positive adolescents are required by law to notify sexual partners, but can find it difficult to achieve this goal. This article offers practice guidance for counselling HIV-positive adolescents about sexual disclosure in clinical settings and for building confidence in managing sexual lives with HIV. We use two vignettes to illustrate key diff...

Introduction HIV in the United States is concentrated in the South, an impoverished region with marked health disparities and high rates of incarceration, particularly among African Americans. In the Deep South state of Alabama, a policy directive to reduce prison overcrowding has diverted large numbers of convicted felons to community supervision....

Medical debt is a persistent problem in the United States. This study examined the role of medical debt in relation to home foreclosure in a Deep South county with high rates of poverty, health disparities, and a racial gap in homeownership. Statistical analysis and geographic information systems mapping of municipal court records for 890 foreclose...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that HIV care providers apply cultural competency when counseling clients about partner notification. In this study, we analyzed transcription data from HIV providers in Alabama (N = 27) and North Carolina (N = 20) using a constant-comparative method to determine whether providers tail...

The families of Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, and Adam Lanza have been blamed for raising sons who became school killers. The mothers, in particular, have been portrayed as failed parents because of their sons’ actions. We applied Goffman’s concept of courtesy (associated) stigma to analyze readers’ responses on CBS and The Huffington News weblogs an...

Stigma towards people living with HIV (PLWH) in healthcare settings is a barrier to optimal treatment. However, our understanding of attitudes towards PLWH from healthcare providers' perspective in the United States is limited and out-of-date. We assessed HIV-related stigma among healthcare staff in Alabama and Mississippi, using online questionnai...

PurposeU.S. health policy promotes HIV testing and linkage to care (test-and-treat) with an emphasis on high risk groups such as convicted offenders. We sought to identify whether or not laws for mandatory HIV disclosure to sexual partners are a barrier to HIV testing among offenders under community supervision. Methodology/approachA total of 197 p...

On April 27, 2011, an EF-4 tornado struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Historic damage from the storm coincided with a recessionary economy, a double blow from which the city has yet to recover. This study applied disaster vulnerability theory to a mixed-methods analysis involving qualitative research, photography, and geographic information systems (GIS)...

Women were a focus of subprime lending during the housing boom, increasing their risk of mortgage foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007–2011. Following Valentine's (2007) call for a feminist geography on interactions between social categories and geographic patterns, this article investigates housing loss among women foreclosees in a south...

The full impact of the U.S. housing crisis is still unfolding, with growing evidence that low-income groups and racial minorities have suffered the worst effects of foreclosure. This article addresses the spatial distribution of mortgage foreclosure in a Southern county that is residentially segregated in terms of race and wealth. We collected data...

In 2010, the U.S. Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) promoted a national strategy for HIV testing and linkage to care (“test and treat”), with emphasis on communities at risk. Potential barriers to HIV testing were cited, including HIV laws that criminalized non-disclosure to sexual partners. In order to identify such barriers, this study assess...

Women were a focus of subprime lending during the housing boom, increasing their risk of mortgage foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007-2011. Following Valentine’s (2007) call for a feminist geography on interactions between social categories and spatial ordering, this article investigates housing loss among women foreclosees in a southern...

Women were a focus of subprime lending during the housing boom, increasing their risk of mortgage foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007–2011. Following Valentine’s (2007) call for a feminist geography on interactions between social categories and geographic patterns, this article investigates housing loss among women foreclosees in a south...

HIV care providers in the United States must counsel clients about disclosure to sexual partners and report anyone who is suspected of noncompliance. This study compared provider attitudes and practices in relation to counseling clients about mandatory disclosure in North Carolina and Alabama, the 2 states with similar HIV epidemiology but differen...

Teaching about HIV/AIDS presents special chal-lenges for the sociology curriculum. It would be hard to argue that a single disease has attracted greater stigma than HIV, despite the virus being neither especially contagious in the conventional sense of contagion (it cannot be caught by cough-ing or sneezing), nor even deadly if treated prop-erly wi...

The full impact of the U.S. housing crisis is still unfolding, with growing evidence that low-income groups and racial minorities have suffered the worst effects of foreclosure. This article addresses the spatial distribution of mortgage foreclosure in a Southern county that is residentially segregated in terms of race and wealth. We collected data...

Purpose: HIV-specific statutes are increasingly popular in the United States and often impose harsh penalties for failure to disclose an HIV diagnosis to sexual partners. The purpose of this study was to examine HIV-related websites for information about non-disclosure as a crime and the relevance of this advice for U.S. audiences. Methods: Interne...

On September 7, 2010, the first of several devastating earthquakes hit Christchurch, New Zealand, causing widespread damage to the city. Two large aftershocks on February 22, 2011 and June 13, 2011 caused numerous deaths and almost complete destruction of the central business district. On April 27, 2011, an EF4 tornado hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA,...

Prisons in the Southern United States are among the most underfunded, understaffed, and crowded in the nation. This study seeks to identify how Alabama state correctional officers experienced crowding related to their mental and physical health and safety. A total of 66 correctional officers at 3 Alabama men’s prisons are surveyed about crowding in...

HIV-specific statutes are increasingly popular in the United States and often impose harsh penalties for failure to disclose an HIV diagnosis to sexual partners. The purpose of this study was to examine HIV-related websites for information about non-disclosure as a crime and the relevance of this advice for US audiences. Internet searches were cond...

This study identified the psychosocial stressors of low-income families who were affected by HIV/AIDS in Alabama. Methods consisted of personal interviews with 12 social workers at public agencies and a review of social work charts for 80 clients at an HIV clinic for mothers and children. The combined results indicated that families were likely to...

This study sought to identify stigma differences between HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Interviewees from Alabama, USA (n = 537) rated two types of stigma (damage to social reputation and 'moral weakness') for seven infections ranging from 'nuisance' conditions (e.g. pubic lice) to life-threatening disease (e.g. HIV/AIDS...

This article reviews the literature on HIV-related interventions for U.S. women prisoners, with a focus on identifying strategies that enabled women to practice safer sex, reduce drug use, and to avoid recidivism. A comprehensive search indicated that only nine such interventions were evaluated in professional journals between 1994 and 2009. These...

Background: Data regarding health behaviors practiced by U.S. long-haul drivers will define the scope of the health risks and inform intervention development. Methods: Face-to-face interviews of convenience samples of long-haul truckers recruited from trucking companies and truck stops to survey and test for a variety of health conditions. Results:...

Victims of domestic violence are legally entitled to police protection, but multiple barriers exist in contacting law enforcement. In this study, we used Federal Bureau of Investigation data, key informant interviews, and focus groups to examine barriers to reporting domestic violence among older African American women in the rural Deep South. Thre...

Incarceration and HIV/AIDS disproportionately affect African American men compared to the U.S. population as a whole. Disparities in relation to crime and HIV/AIDS for Black men suggest that these phenomena have elements in common, particularly given the mediating role of illicit drug use or drug activities in both cases. A socioecological explorat...

Although the crack-cocaine 'epidemic' has been well documented in the USA, little is known about its prevalence in the rural south. Crime statistics, anecdotal evidence and drug treatment reports indicate that crack-cocaine use has emerged as a significant social phenomenon in Alabama. The increase in pediatric and heterosexually-transmitted HIV/AI...

Partner concurrency increases the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as Trichomonas vaginalis. Women diagnosed with T. vaginalis have a 2- to 3-fold higher risk of acquiring the human immunodeficiency virus and developing the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. We sought to describe partnership concurrency (multiple sexual partners...

Portrayals of children being affected by a parent's illness or death from HIV/AIDS typically involve survivors from high-prevalence countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Little is known about such children in the United States, even though HIV/AIDS is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for adults of childbearing age. To address this issue, t...

Long-haul truck driving has been associated with HIV risk in developing countries but little research to date has considered whether truckers in the USA may also be at elevated risk for HIV and other STIs. This multi-method qualitative study explored HIV-risk factors among regional and cross-country truck drivers who were based in the southeastern...

The risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among older adults in the US has increased in recent years, especially in the southeast. Stigma is a known barrier to STI control, but is rarely addressed in relation to older adults because of assumptions about their lack of sexual activity or their low risk of STI. This study presents the results...

The field of communication supports a healthy literature based on both quantitative and qualitative methods. However, individual researchers commonly focus on using only one of these two techniques. The current paper promotes the use of multiple methods to investigate research questions and emphasizes the potential benefits of using quantitative an...

The rural Black Belt of Alabama is among the poorest areas of the nation. Poverty, lack of health infrastructure, and health disparities involving HIV/AIDS and other diseases reflect the lower life expectancy of people in the region. The Black Belt region has the highest HIV rates in rural America. Using Alabama as a case example, the paper describ...

On March 12, 2002, Andrea Yates was found guilty of murder for drowning her five children. Media reports of the Yates trial indicate that she was judged according to the idealization of mothers as self-sacrificial and nurturing. This article uses the theory of the sociology of the body to analyze Yates’s crime in relation to mental illness, gender...

Few studies have addressed the issue of domestic violence and health care for HIV-positive women. However, such women are at increased risk of clinical progression when domestic violence prevents access to health care or their ability to take HIV medicines on a consistent basis. To address this issue, 3 focus groups and 50 in-depth interviews were...

This pilot study sought information on African American men's preferences for partner notification methods for a common sexually transmitted infection called trichomoniasis. Two focus groups of African American men were convened at a public STI clinic where they were being treated for trichomoniasis. The groups identified a sexual hierarchy in men'...

Many children in the United States do not have access to health insurance. Providing health insurance for children has been particularly challenging in rural America. This article describes and evaluates a local plan to provide access to health care for school children in a rural Alabama county. A triangulated methodology (personal interviews, ad h...

Public health sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics play a central role in STD control efforts. This study addressed the perceived quality of client services at two STD clinics in Alabama. The goal of this study was to evaluate and develop tools for assessment of client satisfaction at STD clinics. Four focus groups of staff (N=16) and clients...

Many children in the United States do not have access to health insurance. Providing health insurance for children has been particularly challenging in rural America. This article describes and evaluates a local plan to provide access to health care for school children in a rural Alabama county. A triangulated methodology (personal interviews, ad h...

Many children in the United States do not have access to health insurance. Providing health insurance for children has been particularly challenging in rural America. This article describes and evaluates a local plan to provide access to health care for school children in a rural Alabama county. A triangulated methodology (personal interviews, ad h...

Domestic violence and sexual abuse are important correlates of HIV risk in women. This paper examines the links between HIV risk and domestic violence in women in a region with the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the United States. The theoretical framework incorporates Butler's (1993) and (1990) concept of performative gender and Collins' (2000) "contro...

This pilot telephone survey sought to identify social barriers to treating sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in a socially conservative state (Alabama, USA). The sample consisted of 250 household residents aged 19-50 years, mostly African-American and White, who were drawn from the general population. The participants reported that infected pe...

Many children in the United States do not have access to health insurance. Providing health insur-ance for children has been particularly challenging in rural America. This article describes and eval-uates a local plan to provide access to health care for school children in a rural Alabama county. A triangulated methodology (personal interviews, ad...

The literature on gender and health typically addresses behavioral patterns when discussing men’s attitudes to health. Few of these studies explore men’s anxieties or presentations of self in relation to health problems, particularly for stigmatizing conditions such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Through direct observation and focus gro...

The US Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996 ('The Two-Day Law') mandates insurance coverage for women who have just given birth to remain in hospital for two days post-partum. However, many women are being discharged from hospital after 24 hours. To assess why early discharge is still occurring, a study of 406 new mothers was conduc...

Sexually transmitted infections (STI) occur at high rates in the US compared to other Western nations. Sociocultural indicators such as race and ethnicity, lower socioeconomic status and historically higher rates of certain diseases, such as syphilis, are correlated factors but do not explain fully why STI rates are particularly high in the America...

HIV/AIDS in the United States was originally conceptualized as a "White man's disease." This perception initially shaped responses to HIV/AIDS on a national and regional basis. It is now recognized that minorities are disproportionately at risk of HIV/AIDS, but policy makers have been slow to address this issue, and problems remain in formulating H...

This study used Olshansky's (1962) concept of chronic sorrow to examine social support needs of 21 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive men and women in a southern U.S. city. The methods of inquiry consisted of narrative interviews and a quantitative assessment of depression (the Center of Epidemiological Studies on Depression [CES-D] Scale)...

Black men suffer the highest rates of HIV infection in Alabama. However, little is known about the HIV risks of this sector of the population, primarily because the current public health focus is on women and children. The dearth of research on HIV risk among black men in Alabama is addressed by drawing on focus group, elicitation, and key informan...

Women's experiences of sexual initiation are explored in this article from a socio-cultural and gender perspective that examines the impact of popular discourse about virginity, romance, and marriage on female adolescent sexuality. It is argued that economic and cultural factors weigh heavily on a young women's ability to "be" a virgin, and that vi...

This qualitative study explored the dynamics of adolescent HIV risk through focus group interviews of male and female adolescents at an Alabama juvenile detention facility, key informant interviews, and through interviews of HIV-positive and -negative adults in institutional settings and public health clinics in Alabama. The interviews revealed tha...

Vaginal douching is a common hygiene practice for many U.S. women, but is associated with several health risks. Little is known about the beliefs and attitudes that promote and maintain douching practices. This qualitative study, consisting of four focus groups of 31 southern women, was conducted to gather in-depth information about attitudes and b...

This article puts forth the proposition that asking questions is detrimental to successful therapy with unwilling clients. The utility of three commonly used approaches is examined by asking. Does continuing questioning impede therapy with involuntary clients? Are therapists asking questions primarily as a means of coping personally with sullen and...

In 1974, the New Zealand government created the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) to compensate citizens for all work-related and nonwork-related injuries. The scheme was designed to meet the egalitarian and social welfare goals of New Zealand's government, and replaced a tort liability system like that of the United States. The scheme served...

Ways constructive feedback can help an organization achieve and maintain a competitive advantage within and without the workplace is the topic of this chapter. An approach called 360 feedback is detailed, by which an employee is rated by workers at various levels in the organizational hierarchy instead of by a single supervisor.

Typescript (photocopy). Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 1996. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 449-469).