Living the life : prostitutes and their health

This dissertation is based upon research among 120 female prostitutes in "Northeast", an urban area just outside a major city along the east coast of the United States. Northeast is one of the most densely populated areas in the United States (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1980). The area is characterized by a high rate of poverty. Business and political officials reported as early as in 1967 that the area had the nation's highest percentage of substandard housing, the highest crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rate of venereal diseases and of infant mortality. Also reported was the high number of drug users and related problems (Hayden, 1967). The black population in this area is disadvantaged in many respects. At the end of the 1960s this led to race riots supported by civil rights groups. Following these riots many whites moved from the city to the suburbs and businesses abandoned the central business districts. As a consequence, urban development, which was primarily controlled by whites, was interrupted and most neighborhoods were transformed into nonwhite urban ghettos. Northeast faced economic decline since 1970. The majority of the population still lives in neighborhoods with many burned, deteriorating and boarded-up houses. It is in these areas, comparable to "inner-city ghetto's", where one finds drug copping zones (buying zone) and prostitution "strolls" (street zone). Northeast has four main prostitution strolls, two in areas with a largely black population and two in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. On these strolls most of the prostitutes working are black and Hispanic. The "strolls" are located near transfer stations for truck drivers and near important traffic routes. Northeast also has a few bordellos, with mainly Hispanic prostitutes, and escort services in which white women predominate