"HIV is a diagnosis that challenges us to consider the medical, emotional, and sociocultural aspects of disease. For HIV-infected persons in the South these considerations may be exaggerated by rural isolation, poverty, and the negative judgments of peers. Whetten-Goldstein and Nguyen have brilliantly synthesized all these perspectives in 'You're the First One I've Told'"-John A. Bartlett, Duke University Medical Center

In the second wave of the HIV epidemic, those with the disease are more likely to be female, young, heterosexual, a racial minority, and rural-living than in the past. An understanding of the vastly different lives of this second wave of HIV-infected persons is vital to the development of user-friendly health care systems.

"You're the First One I've Told" offers a view into the lives of men and women infected with HIV. The experiences of twenty-five people living with this disease in rural eastern North Carolina serve as the foundation of this book, which also draws upon unique HIV/AIDS survey data collected by the authors and statistics from the Southeastern United States. This combination of qualitative and quantitative information provides readers with a vivid description of how people live with HIV/AIDS in the midst of their often traumatic lives, and why they manage their illness in ways that seem to contradict mainstream medical and social wisdom. The people interviewed represent a variety of races, genders, professions, family lives, and medical and social service access and utilization.

Kathryn Whetten-Goldstein is an assistant professor of public policy and community and family medicine at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, the Center for Health Policy, Law and Management, and Duke University Medical Center. She is the director of the Health Inequalities Program. Trang Quyen Nguyen is a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Public Health.