Download or read book Syndemic Suffering written by Emily Mendenhall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a major contribution to the study of diabetes, this book is the first to analyze the disease through a syndemic framework. An innovative, mixed-methods study, Emily Mendenhall shows how adverse social conditions, such as poverty and oppressive relationships, disproportionately stress certain populations and expose them to disease clusters. She goes beyond epidemiological research that has linked diabetes and depression, revealing how broad structural inequalities play out in the life histories of individuals, families, and communities, and lead to higher rates of mortality and morbidity. This intimate portrait of syndemic suffering is a model study of chronic disease disparity among the poor in high income countries and will be widely read in public health, medical anthropology, and related fields.
Download or read book Syndemic Suffering written by Emily Mendenhall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a major contribution to the study of diabetes, this book is the first to analyze the disease through a syndemic framework. An innovative, mixed-methods study, Emily Mendenhall shows how adverse social conditions, such as poverty and oppressive relationships, disproportionately stress certain populations and expose them to disease clusters. She goes beyond epidemiological research that has linked diabetes and depression, revealing how broad structural inequalities play out in the life histories of individuals, families, and communities, and lead to higher rates of mortality and morbidity. This intimate portrait of syndemic suffering is a model study of chronic disease disparity among the poor in high income countries and will be widely read in public health, medical anthropology, and related fields.
Download or read book Introduction to Syndemics written by Merrill Singer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-06-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains the growing field of syndemic theory and research, a framework for the analysis and prevention of disease interactions that addresses underlying social and environmental causes. This perspective complements single-issue prevention strategies, which can be effective for discrete problems, but often are mismatched to the goal of protecting the public's health in its widest sense. "Merrill Singer has astutely described why health problems should not be seen in isolation, but rather in the context of other diseases and the social and economic inequities that fuel them. An important read for public health and social scientists." —Michael H. Merson, director, Duke Global Health Institute "Not only does this book provide a persuasive theoretical biosocial model of syndemics, but it also illustrates the model with a wide variety of fascinating historical and contemporary examples." —Peter J. Brown, professor of Anthropology and Global Health and director, Center for Health, Culture, and Society, Emory University "The concept of syndemics is Singer's most important contribution to critical medical anthropology as it interfaces with an ecosocial approach to epidemiology." —Mark Nichter, Regents Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona "Merrill Singer offers the public the most comprehensive work ever written on this key area of research and policy making." —Francisco I. Bastos, chairman of the graduate studies on epidemiology, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz "Exquisitely describes how this new approach is a critical tool that brings together veterinary, medical, and social sciences to solve emerging infectious and non-infectious diseases of today's world." —Bonnie Buntain, MS, DVM, diplomate, American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine "For too long the great integrative perspectives on modern biomedicine and public health disease ecology and social medicine-have remained more or less separate. In this innovative and provocative book, Merrill Singer develops a valuable synthesis that will reshape the way we think about health and disease." —Warwick H. Anderson, MD, PhD, professorial research fellow, Department of History and Centre for Values, Ethics, and the Law in Medicine, University of Sidney
Download or read book Rethinking Diabetes written by Emily Mendenhall and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rethinking Diabetes, Emily Mendenhall investigates how global and local factors transform how diabetes is perceived, experienced, and embodied from place to place. Mendenhall argues that the link between sugar and diabetes overshadows the ways in which underlying biological processes linking hunger, oppression, trauma, unbridled stress, and chronic mental distress produce diabetes. The life history narratives in the book show how deeply embedded these factors are in the ways diabetes is experienced and (re)produced among poor communities around the world. Rethinking Diabetes focuses on the stories of women living with diabetes near or below the poverty line in urban settings in the United States, India, South Africa, and Kenya. Mendenhall shows how women's experiences of living with diabetes cannot be dissociated from their social responsibilities of caregiving, demanding family roles, expectations, and gendered experiences of violence that often displace their ability to care for themselves first. These case studies reveal the ways in which a global story of diabetes overlooks the unique social, political, and cultural factors that produce syndemic diabetes differently across contexts. From the case studies, Rethinking Diabetes clearly provides some important parallels for scholars to consider: significant social and economic inequalities, health systems that are a mix of public and private (with substandard provisions for low-income patients), and rising diabetes incidence and prevalence. At the same time, Mendenhall asks us to unpack how social, cultural, and epidemiological factors shape people's experiences and why we need to take these differences seriously when we think about what drives diabetes and how it affects the lives of the poor.
Download or read book Drinking Smoke written by Mac Marshall and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2013-08-31 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tobacco kills 5 million people every year and that number is expected to double by the year 2020. Despite its enormous toll on human health, tobacco has been largely neglected by anthropologists. Drinking Smoke combines an exhaustive search of historical materials on the introduction and spread of tobacco in the Pacific with extensive anthropological accounts of the ways Islanders have incorporated this substance into their lives. The author uses a relatively new concept called a syndemic—the synergistic interaction of two or more afflictions contributing to a greater burden of disease in a population—to focus at once on the health of a community, political and economic structures, and the wider physical and social environment and ultimately provide an in-depth analysis of smoking’s negative health impact in Oceania. In Drinking Smoke the idea of a syndemic is applied to the current health crisis in the Pacific, where the number of deaths from coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease continues to rise, and the case is made that smoking tobacco in the form of industrially manufactured cigarettes is the keystone of the contemporary syndemic in Oceania. The author shows how tobacco consumption (particularly cigarette smoking after World War II) has become the central interstitial element of a syndemic that produces most of the morbidity and mortality Pacific Islanders suffer. This syndemic is made up of a bundle of diseases and conditions, a set of historical circumstances and events, and social and health inequities most easily summed up as “poverty.” He calls this the tobacco syndemic and argues that smoking is the crucial behavior—the “glue”—holding all of these diseases and conditions together. Drinking Smoke is the first book-length examination of the damaging tobacco syndemic in a specific world region. It is a must-read for scholars and students of anthropology, Pacific studies, history, and economic globalization, as well as for public health practitioners and those working in allied health fields. More broadly the book will appeal to anyone concerned with disease interaction, the social context of disease production, and the full health consequences of the global promotional efforts of Big Tobacco.
Download or read book Unmasked written by Emily Mendenhall and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unmasked is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when a collective turn from the coronavirus to the economy occurred in the COVID summer of 2020. State political failures, local negotiations among political and public health leaders, and community (dis)belief about the virus resulted in Okoboji being declared a hotspot just before the Independence Day weekend, when an influx of half a million people visit the town. The story is both personal and political. Author Emily Mendenhall, an anthropologist at Georgetown University, grew up in Okoboji, and her family still lives there. As the events unfolded, Mendenhall was in Okoboji, where she spoke formally with over 100 people and observed a community that rejected public health guidance, revealing deep-seated mistrust in outsiders and strong commitments to local thinking. Unmasked is a fascinating and heartbreaking account of where people put their trust, and how isolationist popular beliefs can be in America's small communities. This book is the recipient of the 2022 Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize from Vanderbilt University Press for the best book in the area of art or medicine.
Download or read book Stigma Syndemics written by Bayla Ostrach and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-09-07 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central to this volume, and critical to its unique creative significance and contribution, is the conceptual unification of syndemics and stigma. Syndemics theory is increasingly recognized in social science and medicine as a crucial framework for examining and addressing pathways of interaction between biological and social aspects of chronic and acute suffering in populations. While much research to date addresses known syndemics such as those involving HIV, diabetes, and mental illness, this book explores new directions just beginning to emerge in syndemics research – revealing what syndemics theory can illuminate about, for example the health consequences of socially pathologized pregnancy or infertility, when stigmatization of reproductive options or experiences affect women’s health. In other chapters, newly identified syndemics affecting incarcerated or detained individuals are highlighted, demonstrating the physical, psychological, structural, and political-economic effects of stigmatizing legal frameworks on human health, through a syndemic lens. Elsewhere in the volume, scholars examine the stigma of poverty and how it affects both nutritional and oral health. The common thread across all chapters is linkages of social stigmatization, structural conditions, and how these societal forces drive biological and disease interactions affecting human health, in areas not previously explored through these lenses.
Download or read book Rethinking Diabetes written by Emily Mendenhall and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rethinking Diabetes, Emily Mendenhall investigates how global and local factors transform how diabetes is perceived, experienced, and embodied from place to place. Mendenhall argues that the link between sugar and diabetes overshadows the ways in which underlying biological processes linking hunger, oppression, trauma, unbridled stress, and chronic mental distress produce diabetes. The life history narratives in the book show how deeply embedded these factors are in the ways diabetes is experienced and (re)produced among poor communities around the world. Rethinking Diabetes focuses on the stories of women living with diabetes near or below the poverty line in urban settings in the United States, India, South Africa, and Kenya. Mendenhall shows how women's experiences of living with diabetes cannot be dissociated from their social responsibilities of caregiving, demanding family roles, expectations, and gendered experiences of violence that often displace their ability to care for themselves first. These case studies reveal the ways in which a global story of diabetes overlooks the unique social, political, and cultural factors that produce syndemic diabetes differently across contexts. From the case studies, Rethinking Diabetes clearly provides some important parallels for scholars to consider: significant social and economic inequalities, health systems that are a mix of public and private (with substandard provisions for low-income patients), and rising diabetes incidence and prevalence. At the same time, Mendenhall asks us to unpack how social, cultural, and epidemiological factors shape people's experiences and why we need to take these differences seriously when we think about what drives diabetes and how it affects the lives of the poor.
Download or read book Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology written by Peter J. Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The editors of the third edition of the seminal textbook Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology bring it completely up to date for both instructors and students. The collection of 49 readings (17 of them new to this edition) offers extensive background description and exposes students to the breadth of theoretical, methodological, and practical perspectives and issues in the field of medical anthropology. The text provides specific examples and case studies of research as it is applied to a range of health settings: from cross-cultural clinical encounters to cultural analysis of new biomedical technologies and the implementation of programs in global health settings. The new edition features: • a major revision that eliminates many older readings in favor of more fresh, relevant selections; • a new section on structural violence that looks at the impact of poverty and other forms of social marginalization on health; • an updated and expanded section on “Conceptual Tools,” including new research and ideas that are currently driving the field of medical anthropology forward (such as epigenetics and syndemics); • new chapters on climate change, Ebola, PTSD among Iraq/Afghanistan veterans, eating disorders, and autism, among others; • recent articles from Margaret Mead Award winners Sera Young, Seth Holmes, and Erin Finley, along with new articles by such established medical anthropologists as Paul Farmer and Merrill Singer.
Download or read book Medical Humanities Sociology and the Suffering Self written by Wendy Lowe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following criticisms of the traditionally polarized view of understanding suffering through either medicine or social justice, Lowe makes a compelling argument for how the medical humanities can help to go beyond the traditional biographical and epistemic breaks to see into the nature and properties of suffering and what is at stake. Lowe demonstrates through analysis of major healthcare workforce issues and incidence of burnout how key policies and practices influence healthcare education and experiences of both patients and health professionals. By including first person narratives from health professionals as a tool and resource, she illustrates how dominant ideas about the self enter practice as a refusal of suffering. Demonstrating the relationship between personal experience, theory and research, Lowe argues for a pedagogy of suffering that shows how the moral anguish implicit in suffering is an ethical response of the emergent self. This is an important read for all those interested in medical humanities, health professional education, person-centred care and the sociology of health and illness.
Download or read book Global Mental Health written by Brandon A Kohrt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there is increasing political interest in research and policy-making for global mental health, there remain major gaps in the education of students in health fields for understanding the complexities of diverse mental health conditions. Drawing on the experience of many well-known experts in this area, this book uses engaging narratives to illustrate that mental illnesses are not only problems experienced by individuals but must also be understood and treated at the social and cultural levels. The book -includes discussion of traditional versus biomedical beliefs about mental illness, the role of culture in mental illness, intersections between religion and mental health, intersections of mind and body, and access to health care; -is ideal for courses on global mental health in psychology, public health, and anthropology departments and other health-related programs.
Download or read book Human Evolutionary Genetics written by Mark Jobling and published by Garland Science. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 1557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human Evolutionary Genetics is a groundbreaking text which for the first time brings together molecular genetics and genomics to the study of the origins and movements of human populations. Starting with an overview of molecular genomics for the non-specialist (which can be a useful review for those with a more genetic background), the book shows h
Download or read book Health Matters written by Eric Mykhalovskiy and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Health Matters, contributors from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary traditions address multiple dimensions of health care, such as nursing, midwifery, home care, pharmaceuticals, medical education, and palliative care. Through their explorations, the book poses questions about the role that the forms of expertise associated with evidence-based health care play in shaping how we understand and organize health services. Authors critique instrumental, managerial ways of knowing health care and focus on how such ways of knowing limit our understandings of and responses to health care problems and are linked with the growing commodification, individualization, and privatization of Canadian health services. Working with analytic perspectives such as feminism, Marxist political economy, critical ethnography, science and technology studies, governmentality studies, and institutional ethnography, the volume demonstrates how critical social science perspectives contribute alternative perspectives about what counts as health care problems and how to best to address them.
Download or read book Health Matters written by Eric Mykhalovskiy and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-06-05 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book calls into question the complexity of social, political, cultural, and technological aspects of the health care system. It explores how critical social science research can be put into action to improve health care in Canada.
Download or read book A Companion to Medical Anthropology written by Merrill Singer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-02-23 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fully revised new edition of the defining reference work in the field of medical anthropology A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition provides the most complete account of the key issues and debates in this dynamic, rapidly growing field. Bringing together contributions by leading international authorities in medical anthropology, this comprehensive reference work presents critical assessments and interpretations of a wide range of topical themes, including global and environmental health, political violence and war, poverty, malnutrition, substance abuse, reproductive health, and infectious diseases. Throughout the text, readers explore the global, historical, and political factors that continue to influence how health and illness are experienced and understood. The second edition is fully updated to reflect current controversies and significant new developments in the anthropology of health and related fields. More than twenty new and revised articles address research areas including war and health, illicit drug abuse, climate change and health, colonialism and modern biomedicine, activist-led research, syndemics, ethnomedicines, biocommunicability, COVID-19, and many others. Highlighting the impact medical anthropologists have on global health care policy and practice, A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition: Features specially commissioned articles by medical anthropologists working in communities worldwide Discusses future trends and emerging research areas in the field Describes biocultural approaches to health and illness and research design and methods in applied medical anthropology Addresses topics including chronic diseases, rising levels of inequality, war and health, migration and health, nutritional health, self-medication, and end of life care Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series, A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition, remains an indispensable resource for medical anthropologists, as well as an excellent textbook for courses in medical anthropology, ethnomedicine, global health care, and medical policy.
Download or read book They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields written by Sarah Horton and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-07-19 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California's Central Valley to understand why farmworkers die at work each summer. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkers' daily work and home lives, Horton examines how U.S. immigration policy and the historic exclusion of farmworkers from the promises of liberalism has made migrant farmworkers what she calls 'exceptional workers.' She explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, as well as the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. The book takes an in-depth look at the work risks faced by migrants at all stages of life: as teens, in their middle-age, and ultimately as elderly workers. By following the lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, Horton provides a searing portrait of how their precarious immigration and work statuses culminate in preventable morbidity and premature death"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Global Warming and the Political Ecology of Health written by Hans Baer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-17 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking, global analysis of the relationship between climate change and human health, Hans Baer and Merrill Singer inventory and critically analyze the diversity of significant and sometimes devastating health implications of global warming. Using a range of theoretical tools from anthropology, medicine, and environmental sciences, they present ecosyndemics as a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between environmental change and disease. They also go beyond the traditional concept of disease to examine changes in subsistence and settlement patterns, land-use, and lifeways, throwing the sociopolitical and economic dimensions of climate change into stark relief. Revealing the systemic structures of inequality underlying global warming, they also issue a call to action, arguing that fundamental changes in the world system are essential to the mitigation of an array of emerging health crises link to anthropogenic climate and environmental change.
