Field Placement: Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Sexually Transmitted Disease Program
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Dr. Jorge Montoya, Director of Research and Evaluation
Student Name: Aaron Plant
Year: 2004

For my field placement, I worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (LADHS) as a research analyst in their Sexually Transmitted Diseases Program. The LADHS is one of the largest health departments in the country, with over 50 programs and an annual budget of 3 billion dollars. They provide both medical care and public health services to residents of the county of Los Angeles. The STD program itself employs approximately 150 people and includes various projects, from disease surveillance to research and program evaluation.

My fieldwork took place during the school year, from November 2004 until June 2005. I worked an average of 20 hours per week. My preceptor was Dr. Jorge Montoya, Director of Research and Evaluation. My main project at the STD Program was developing an internet-based study of men who have sex with men (MSM) called the Conjoint Study. The study uses marketing techniques to investigate the decision-making process of MSM when they select a sex partner online. I was given a high level of responsibility for the Conjoint Study. I completed extensive formative research for the study, including content analysis of web sites, created a discussion guide and screener for focus groups, ran a focus group, and analyzed the group videotape for themes. I also wrote the online questionnaire for the Conjoint Study itself.

In addition to the Conjoint Study, I also worked with the evaluation data from Stop the Sores, a large-scale social marketing campaign designed to reduce syphilis among MSM in Los Angeles. I cleaned the data from the first year evaluation and used SPSS to compare it with the previous year’s evaluation data. I also assisted Jorge in doing a factor and cluster analysis of 44 Likert scale questions on the evaluation survey. This allowed me to develop five distinct personality types of MSM corresponding to their answers to questions about risk behavior, HIV disclosure, and affiliation with the gay community. I gained valuable experience with both qualitative and quantitative research while working with at the STD program.

Completing my fieldwork at the LADHS STD Program gave me a feeling for what it is like to work in a large government bureaucracy. I found that there were real benefits to the situation, like the opportunity to work on important research studies. There were also drawbacks, like the enormous amount of red tape required to get even small things like internet access. Overall, the experience helped me to gain valuable research skills and to further refine my career goals.

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