China Public Health - surveys of health knowledge

It’s been an eventful week, and I have yet to put any of it down in words. On Tuesday night I received a call from my public health teacher inviting me to take part in her/their AIDS education and survey activities. The next day directly after class I met her and 10 of her students and then drove to a large hotel/banquet hall in the middle of the city. Once inside the building we were taken to a large hall where four different platforms were set up, two of which looked like they would be hosting weddings and two others that were either birthday parties or some other festivity. Looking down on us were balconies that reminded me of an opera house. Hanging and crisscrossing in all directions were streamers and other superfluous decorations. We were told the hall staffed nearly 200 waiters/waitresses. We were there to provide health information regarding sexually transmitted diseases. Apparently, (and I was told this by some of the students) service work and especially waiting/staffing large restaurants/banquets is linked to a lack of general health knowledge and specifically health knowledge relating to HIV/AIDS. As we walked in the servers were lined up in an army style line while their boss – a very young and cosmopolitan looking man with cell phone in hand and sunglasses propped over gelled head – gave orders. This scene was followed by disappointment because of the 200 or so servers only 20 had shown up. My professor assumed that the owner may have had an impact on the turn-out (perhaps because of the loss of work-hours). After passing out a survey testing current health knowledge and some pamphlets about prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, we had a discussion with the manager and decided that we would come back later that afternoon when more of the servers would be able to join us. I unfortunately had class so I was not able to go. However this was my first insight into how surveys and public health research is done. My discussions with students on the way home unveiled that there really isn’t a study of anthropological health or ethnographic studies. Most of the health research is based on pointed surveys of populations. Maybe it’s the naïve idealistic American in me but all I feel like doing is asking people about their life… where did you grow up? When did you come to the city? How did you find your current job? Do you have kids? I guess that my assumption is that with a little time and effort, issues about HIV/AIDS and general health will eventually come out of those discussions. It’s been fun and useful to watch how surveys are done, and I will continue to work with that group (I still think this is an important part of health research) but I’m eager to utilize some Mandarin and see what’s on the mind of the ‘Fuwuyuan” (server) that serves the masses and then thank him/her for doing so.