Anthropology and Public Health Policy
Medical anthropologist (and medical student) Dave Campbell outlines “Anthropology’s Contribution to Public Health Policy Development” (2011) in this accessible (and open access) piece published in the…
Tag: health
Cultural constructions of illness
“The Diseases You Only Get if You Believe in Them” (2016, The Atlantic) looks at certain forms of illness that are culturally specific. In this piece, Julie Beck…
Lao Camp Food (Part 2)
This is the second installment of a food journal I kept during several days in February camping with a bomb clearance team in Laos. If you missed my…
Labor Pains and Helpless Infants: Eve or Evolution? (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this post, we discussed two explanations for difficult childbirth and helpless babies: the Fall and the obstetrical dilemma (OD) hypothesis. Both have their weaknesses.…
Anorexia’s Deadly Deceit
Anorexia is commonly associated with body image issues. But more significant influences may be how people diagnosed with anorexia perceive and experience food—and how they associate eating practi…
How Anthropology Can Transform Global Health Efforts
In the context of global health crises from tuberculosis to HIV/AIDS and Ebola, Jean Hunleth discusses How Anthropology Can Transform Global Health Efforts (American Association of Universit…
Black Disabled Woman Syllabus
Vilissa Thompson, Disability Rights Consultant & Advocate, has created the Black Disabled Woman Syllabus in response to the lack of intersectionality she has seen in disability studies. …
Shared Sanitation: Bathroom Access and Facilities Around the World
Questions of bathroom access tend to have the greatest impact on the poor and the marginalized. — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Shared Sanitation: Bathroom Access and Facilities Around the World
Questions of bathroom access tend to have the greatest impact on the poor and the marginalized. — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Labor Pains and Helpless Infants: Eve or Evolution? (Part I)
Before Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and shared it with Adam, being human was apparently hunky-dory. However, after Earth’s first two people disobeyed their creator, He…
Spaces of Waiting
Unable to access quality emergency obstetric care, millions of women across the global south, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, shoulder the burden of health care systems that are…
What is "sensemaking"? Anthropology in marketing
Quantitative research — which has long been the market research standard — can provide insights into broad patterns and customer metrics. While this ‘big data’ can tell a…
Racism in/and Medicine
In The Pain Gap: Why Doctors Offer Less Relief to Black Patients (2016, The Daily Beast), Keith Wailoo (Princeton professor in History and Public Affairs) discusses how the treatment of…
Are We to Blame for the Colorado Theater Shooter?
Around midnight on July 20, 2012, James Holmes entered a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, for a showing of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises and took…
Zika’s Frightening Stranglehold
Some of the earliest vampire stories were about demons or shape-shifters who spent their nights robbing pregnant women of their unborn fetuses, silently killing infants in their sleep,…
Meat Culture
You might have heard: The Obama administration released its new Dietary Guidelines for Americans in January to an outcry. While the new rules tell us to limit our…
Beyond the Vaccination Rift
“Man is by nature a social animal … for [whom] the whole must necessarily come before the part.” —Aristotle Parents who do not vaccinate their children have faced…
Health in a Rwandan Hospital Garden
Hospitals have many tools at their disposal. A garden is not typically one of them (not in the healthcare system I am accustomed to in the United States,…
I’ve Got the Neanderthal Blues
I have pale skin, red hair, and freckles; my skin shows signs of permanent sun damage even though I’m not yet 40; I’ve had bouts of depression; I…
Food Is Health
Food is health. I’ve known it since I was a kid growing up in Wisconsin. My dad was diagnosed with diabetes when I was a baby. His disease…
Zika and Microcephaly: Can We Learn from History?
Aedes aegypti, the mosquito capable of transmitting the zika virus. Photo from Wikipedia. Brazil is facing an epidemic of a severe birth defect: microcephaly (abnormally small head size),…
Wellbeing and Health
From “No Shame, No Blame: Secrets of Living Well” produced by Vanderbilt Health and Wellness
Wellbeing and Health
From “No Shame, No Blame: Secrets of Living Well” produced by Vanderbilt Health and Wellness
Wellbeing and Health
From “No Shame, No Blame: Secrets of Living Well” produced by Vanderbilt Health and Wellness