This paper discusses labor migration as an example of how focusing on the meso-level highlights the social processes through which structural factors produce HIV risk. Situating that argument in relation to existing work on economic organization and HIV risk as well as research on labor migration and HIV vulnerabilities, the paper demonstrates how analyzing the processes through which labor migration creates vulnerability can shift attention away from the proximate behavioral determinants of HIV risk and toward the community and policy levels. Further, it presents the concepts of externalities and the ethics of consumption, which underline how both producers and consumers benefit from low-waged migrant labor, and thus are responsible for the externalization of HIV risk characteristic of supply chains that rely on migrant labor. These concepts point to strategies through which researchers and advocates could press the public and private sectors to improve the conditions in which migrants live and work, with implications for HIV as well as other health outcomes. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Structural violence Vulnerability Labor migration Meso-level Ethics of consumption Externalities HIV prevention Structural interventions

Vulnerable Populations vulnerable population income distribution HIV Infections Human immunodeficiency virus infection economics health care policy health risk health disparity human ethics social care Human immunodeficiency virus Meso-level health externality Structural interventions Ethics of consumption Externalities health HIV prevention Structural violence health program social status Humans disease spread labor migration working conditions occupational exposure health geography risk factor Risk Factors Review theoretical study vulnerability Models, Theoretical organization and management infection prevention migration infection risk Transients and Migrants disease incidence