title: Sex work in trucking milieux: "lot lizards," truckers, and risk.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Long-haul truckers often engage in risk-laden sexual mixing and drug exchanges with female sex workers while on the road, which increase their vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections/blood borne infections (STI/BBI).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  An ethnoepidemiological study of STI/BBI in trucker-centered populations was conducted at four truckstops in the United States. This article reports findings from an analysis of the female sex worker data, which show how mobility and transience, as well as poverty, homelessness, and exposure to violence, have the potential to exacerbate the occupational health risks of female sex workers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Phase 1 involved nonparticipant observation of trucker risk network groups in public and semi-public settings at two Arizona truckstops. Phase 2 was a large-scale ethnoepidemiological study of STI/BBI risk among trucker networks at two Georgia truckstops. Ten sex workers in Phoenix and 29 in Atlanta were interviewed individually or in focus groups. Textual data were analyzed using QSR NVivo 8 and serological data collected from the Georgia sample were analyzed for STIs/HIV.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Infections occur within these populations, where the existence of multiple risks delivered via multiple channels within physical proximity maintains infection and transmission.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Environmental-level interventions, such as better security at truck stops, and individual-level interventions, such as STI/BBI infection education and testing for FSWs and truckers, can contribute to safer settings for truckers, sex workers, and their sex and drug partners.
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Yorghos
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Apostolopoulos
authors.forename: Sevil
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sönmez
authors.forename: Mona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shattell
authors.forename: Jennie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kronenfeld
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001130:Arizona / Q000453:epidemiology; D017848:Blood-Borne Pathogens; D005260:Female; D005845:Georgia / Q000453:epidemiology; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008875:Middle Aged; D018986:Motor Vehicles; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D012309:Risk-Taking; D011477:Sex Work; D060386:Sex Workers / Q000523:psychology*; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D055815:Young Adult