Research
Tara McKay is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her BA in Psychology from Occidental College, magna cum laude, and her MA in Sociology from UCLA. While pursuing her degrees, Tara has worked as a research study coordinator and data analyst for AIDS Project Los Angeles, an international NGO dedicated to providing social services and advocating for people with HIV and AIDS. Tara's research interests are grounded in this professional experience. Her work examines the intersections of sexuality, gender, and human rights with health and health policy in the U.S. and sub-Saharan Africa. Her work employs both quantitative and qualitative methods, including multi-level modeling, in-depth qualitative interviews, and ethnography.
Tara's dissertation research examines the global response to AIDS—perhaps the paradigmatic “global disease”—and specifically the exclusion and then inclusion of what came to be called “MSM” (men who have sex with men) in that policy response. Using qualitative data from interviews, archival materials, original survey data, and a new data set compiled from UNGASS country progress reports on HIV, Tara examines the social processes that have informed the ongoing construction and diffusion of global AIDS priorities concerning MSM at three distinct levels: 1) the transnational elite, 2) government and non-government organizations, and 3) ordinary citizens. In the current international environment in which more than two and a half million new HIV infections are recorded each year, the broader implications of this project are to assess not only how and in whose interests global health policy is made, but also to examine who is deemed at risk of disease and how they come to be identified – or not.
Tara has received several awards for her dissertation work:
- an honorable mention and cash award for the Martin Levine Dissertation Award (2011) administered by the American Sociology Association Sexualities Sectionan
- an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (2012)
- a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2012)
Additional ongoing and recent projects include:
- U.S. healthcare policy and provision, with a focus on 1) community and neighborhood spillover effects of uninsurance, 2) clinical trials in the provision of basic healthcare, and 3) client-provider relationships in HIV/AIDS medical care
- social identity and substance use during sex among young African American and Latino gay and bisexual men in Los Angeles and New York
- gender, masculinity, and disclosure behaviors of HIV positive men who have sex with men and women (MSMW)
Tara is affiliated with the California Center for Population Research and the Community Based Research program at AIDS Project Los Angeles.
