The Anthropology of Infectious Disease: International Health Perspectives / Edition 1

by Peter J. Brown, Marcia C. Inhorn

Overview

Anthropological contributions to the study of infectious disease and to the study of actual infectious disease eradication programmes have rarely been collected in one volume. In the era of AIDS and the global resurgance of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, there is widespread interest and concern about the cultural, ecological and political factors that are directly related to the increased prevalence of infectious disease. In this book, the authors have assembled the growing scholarship in one volume. Chapters explore the coevolution of genes and cultural traits; the cultural construction of 'disease' and how these models influence health-seeking behaviour; cultural adaptive strategies to infectious disease problems; the ways in which ethnography sheds light on epidemiological patterns of infectious disease; the practical and ethical dilemmas that anthropologists face by participating in infectious disease programmes; and the political ecology of infectious disease.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789056995560
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/23/1998
Series:	Theory and Practice in Medical Anthropology Series , #4
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter J. Brown, Marcia C. Inhorn

Table of Contents

1: Anthropologies; 1: Introduction; 2: The Anthropology of Infectious Disease; 2: Histories; 3: Dangerous Dirt: Paleopathology of Valley Fever and the Biopolitics of Race; 4: A New Look at an Old Disease: Smallpox and Biotechnology; 5: Culture and the Global Resurgence of Malaria; 3: Methods; 6: The Household Ecology of Disease Transmission: Dengue Fever in the Dominican Republic; 7: Infertility, Infection, and latrogenesis in Egypt: The Anthropological Epidemiology of Blocked Tubes; 8: Key Informants, Pile Sorts, or Surveys? Comparing Behavioral Research Methods for the Study of Acute Respiratory Infections in West Bengal; 4: Ethnographies; 9: “Digestive Worms”: Ethnomedical Approaches to Intestinal Parasitism in Southern Ethiopia; 10: Illness Semantics and International Health: The Weak Lungs-Tuberculosis Complex in the Philippines; 11: The Sitala Syndrome: The Cultural Context of Measles Mortality in Pakistan; 12: Knowing Pneumonia: Mothers, Doctors, and Sick Children in Pakistan; 5: Political Economies; 13: “Prostitution,” “Risk,” and “Responsibility”: Paradigms of AIDS Prevention and Women's Identities in Thika, Kenya; 14: Ethnography, Social Analysis, and the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted HIV Infection Among Poor Women in Haiti; 15: “I'm Not Dog, No!”: Cries of Resistance Against Cholera Control Campaigns

Editorial Reviews

The book should serve as a useful reference to students and scholars of international health...I would recommend it as an entry point into the study of current international health issues.

Isaac K. Nyamongo

One could easily teach a course in medical anthropology or public health issues on the basis of this volume, which makes it a doubly-valuable book.

Lenore Manderson

A collection of anthropological contributions to the study of infectious disease and disease eradication programs, examining cultural, ecological, and political factors directly related to the spread of infectious diseases. Subjects include the co-evolution of genes and cultural traits, the cultural construction of disease, smallpox and biotechnology, the anthropological epidemiology of blocked tubes in Egypt, and ethnography and prevention of HIV among poor women in Haiti. Of interest for those working in medical anthropology, physical anthropology, epidemiology and public health, medical ecology, infectious disease, and medical parasitology. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"The book should serve as a useful reference to students and scholars of international health...I would recommend it as an entry point into the study of current international health issues."

"One could easily teach a course in medical anthropology or public health issues on the basis of this volume, which makes it a doubly-valuable book."

From the Publisher