Although Hepatitis C has profound impacts on individuals living in communities, most research has been conducted in a hospital or laboratory setting. Additionally, there is a lack of research exploring the social effects of Hepatitis C in rural communities. In this qualitative study, we focus on perceptions on Hepatitis C within a rural community, describe how the local residents perceive social hierarchy within their community, and explore the process of stigma building. Informed by a grounded theory approach, we employed a snowball sampling strategy in a southern rural area to conduct in-depth, open-ended interviews. In our findings we describe how local restaurants were often utilized as places to exchange personal opinions on various community issues among the upper hierarchical members, consider the ways social hierarchy influences people’s perceptions, and explore community members’ response to the problem of ignored viral infections within the community. We found the community leaders are earning the trust by living in the community for an extended period of time; therefore, they tend to be elderly yet remain active as members of various committees. Additionally, we argue that the common view of “family-like support” in rural communities is largely a myth; it is a romanticized view of the rural living held and perpetuated by the upper-class people in the community. Therefore, instead of depending on idealized or imaginary social support, rural communities need to consider organizing a system of formal support.

The use of health insurance to cover legal abortion is a controversial issue on which Americans are sharply divided. Currently, there is a lack of research on this issue as data became available only recently. Using data from the newly released General Social Survey in 2018, this study examines who is more or less likely to support health insurance coverage for legal abortion. The results show that the support and opposition were about evenly divided. The findings from the logistic regression analysis reveal that, holding other variables constant, Democrats, liberals, urban residents, the more educated, and the older were more likely to support health insurance coverage for legal abortion while women, Southerners, Christians, the currently married, and those with more children were less likely to favor it, compared to their respective counterparts. Additionally, the effect of education was stronger for liberals than for non-liberals. Race, family income, and full-time work status make no difference in the outcome. The findings have significant implications for research and practices in health insurance coverage for legal abortion.

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