Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss introduced awareness context in their 1965 landmark study Awareness of Dying. Studying the process of dying in six San Francisco Bay Area hospitals, they were struck by how little information patients possessed about their impending death, even though the staff were often aware that the patient might be dying. They analyzed the organizational-structural conditions for secrecy, its resulting interactions, changes in awareness, and consequences of the interactions for the participants and the setting. Drawing from the symbolic interactionist tradition, Glaser and Strauss intended to capture the work of managing and negotiating social change within the structural context of the hospital.