CONCLUSIONS
Recently, funding agencies have recognized the need for research on ethnic minorities and have required researchers either to include ethnic minority groups and women in study samples or to justify their exclusion. It is critical, however, that research approaches utilized with ethnic minority groups be transformed so that results and interpretation are meaningful. In this paper we have focused on Latino gay men, however, many of the issues addressed are applicable to research with other numerical minority groups such as LGBT people and people of color.
Anecessary step toward developing theories and methodologies appropriate for conducting research on Latino gay and bisexual men is to understand the role of culture. Attention must be given to how and why cultural and socioeconomic forces contribute to sexual behavior. Exploring cultural scripts and understanding how they influence self-definition, sexual be- havior, and self-protection are important directions for research. Concepts of identity, both as a gay person and as an HIV-positive person, are complex and fluid, and therefore require attention to the context and to nuances of language. Incorporating an awareness of, and sensitivity to, cultural issues into the design and procedures of research requires studies that focus on relatively homogeneous cultural groups. Studies that include small numbers of Latino gay men within a diverse sample do not provide sufficient representation to allow separate analyses. Frequently in such studies, Latinos from various cultures are lumped together with other men of color into the “ethnic minority” group. Obviously, cultural issues cannot be carefully studied in this manner. Moreover, differences that exist across Latino cultures due to race, nationality, historical, and political issues should be further examined to gain a meaningful understanding of the Latino cultural mosaic.
The use of both qualitative and quantitative methods is encouraged in research with various LGBT populations. Qualitative methods are instrumental to explore constructs and to surface unasked questions, which can advance theory and contribute to hypothesis generation. Appropriate and valid quantitative measures can then be developed and