Paper short abstract:

Community clinics provide quality services to low income populations. This paper will discuss an ethnographic project conducted in three community clinics serving uninsured populations, and how a reflexive approach led me to use an intersectional approach which shaped the research and its analysis.

Paper long abstract:

Community health centres in the US provide low-income populations with much needed coverage given the expensive nature of healthcare in the US. These centers continue providing services to low-income communities despite the heavily politicised discourse around health care costs in the last 10 years. The clinics balance scarce resources while providing quality services regardless of their patients' ability to afford insurance. In this paper I will recount my ethnographic research project in three community health centres that provide prenatal care to low-income and immigrant Latina women. Using an intersectional approach, I study the ways in which the clinics strive to serve their populations while managing their own limited resources. Part of my work meant reflecting on my role and presence as a male cisgender Latino researcher in that setting. That personal reflection had a profound effect on my research, since it changed the way I interacted with the participants. Even more so, my research priorities changed; the focus of my ethnography shifted from studying the way in which research can influence policies and clinical guidelines, to understanding how these guidelines are (or are not) carried out in everyday practice. It also shifted the focus of my research analysis. The research benefited since this approach contextualised the omnipresent tension that comes from providing quality services while having limited resources.