Epidemiology and Culture

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
Figures and Tables......Page 11
Foreword......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 17
Epidemiology and Culture......Page 21
I. Patterns of Disease and Patterns of Culture......Page 23
II. Epidemiology and Medical Anthropology......Page 25
III. An Integrated Cultural-Epidemiological Approach......Page 30
A. A Cultural Epidemiological Study of Epilepsy......Page 31
B. A Cultural-Epidemiological Study of Ataques de Nervios......Page 39
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 42
2 The Origins of an Integrated Approach in Anthropology and Epidemiology......Page 43
I. Scientific Attention to the Social Environment in the Nineteenth Century......Page 44
A. Early Uses of Fieldwork in Epidemiology......Page 45
B. Social Causes of Disease and Death......Page 47
A. Returning to Social Medicine: A South African Experiment......Page 48
B. The Human Resources and Intellectual Legacy of the IFCH......Page 51
C. From Practice to Process: Unpacking the Social and Cultural Environment......Page 53
D. Redefining the Social Environment through Medical Ecology......Page 56
E. The Social Environment and Mental Health......Page 58
III. Continuity and Change in Twenty-First-Century Projects Integrating Anthropology and Epidemiology......Page 60
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 63
I. The Origins and Meanings of Disease-Pattern Categories......Page 64
A. Mixing Person, Place, and Time: Modernization, Cultural Consonance, and Blood Pressure......Page 66
B. Connecting Person, Place, and Time: Disease Clusters......Page 68
II. Assumptions about Defining and Measuring Variables......Page 69
A. Status, Sex, Age, and Accident Mortality......Page 70
B. National Assumptions about Social Worth: Vital Statistics......Page 73
C. Race as a Cultural Category and as a Risk Factor for Ill Health......Page 78
MEASURING IDENTITY AND ORIGIN......Page 81
D. Determining Who and What Gets Counted......Page 83
IV. Aspects of Place......Page 85
A. Through What Social and Cultural Pathways Does Place Influence Health?......Page 86
A. Through What Social and Cultural Pathways Does Time Influence Health?......Page 90
OTHER CONNECTIONS BETWEEN TIME AND HEALTH......Page 92
VI. Conclusion......Page 94
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 95
I. Introduction......Page 96
A. Developing Ethnographically Sensitive Vital Statistics: Measuring Infant and Child Mortality in Brazil......Page 98
A. Selection Bias and the Ecology of Medical Care......Page 101
B. Other Sources of Bias in Epidemiological Research......Page 104
III. Data Collection as Social Exchange......Page 107
A. Are Interviews the Best Way to Measure Sensitive Behaviors? Asking about Hygiene Behaviors in Bangladesh......Page 108
B. Sensitivity of Topic and of Interviewer Influence on Respondent Accuracy: The World Fertility Survey in Nepal......Page 110
A. Sensitivity of Topic, Understanding of Question, and Biomedical versus Public Standards: Are You Circumcised?......Page 113
V. Social and Cultural Aspects of Clinical Trials as a Form of Data Collection......Page 115
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 117
5 Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Cholera......Page 118
I. The Pervasiveness of Diarrhea: Implications for Epidemiology......Page 120
II. Cholera: The So-Called Natural History of a Diarrheal Disease......Page 122
III. Cholera in Latin America: A Sociocultural History of Disease......Page 125
A. The Phase of Ecological Susceptibility: Why Did Cholera Return?......Page 129
1. MEASURES OF RISK......Page 130
2. THE DESCRIPTION AND USE OF THE CASE FATALITY RATE......Page 134
3. COUNTING CHOLERA FATALITIES IN VENEZUELA......Page 135
4. THE MEANINH OF CHOLERA FATALITY RATES......Page 136
C. Care-Seeking: How Health Institutions and the Populace Responded to the Cholera Epidemic......Page 138
D. Recovery or Recrimination?......Page 140
IV. Conclusion: Is Cholera a Signpost?......Page 141
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 143
I. Introduction......Page 144
A. Educational Interventions......Page 147
B. Managerial and Administrative Interventions......Page 151
D. Environmental Interventions......Page 153
E. Other Intervention Categories......Page 155
A. The Difference between Intervening with Individuals and Populations......Page 157
B. How Community Changes Influence Individual Changes......Page 158
III. Anthropological Participation in Population Interventions......Page 161
B. Designing a Household Intervention in Bangladesh......Page 163
A. How Patient and Physician Expectations Influence the Conduct of Randomized Controlled Trials......Page 164
B. Why RCT Designs Limit Intervention Possibilities......Page 167
V. Conclusion......Page 170
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 171
I. Popular and Professional Ideas about Risk......Page 172
Popular and Lay Epidemiology......Page 175
An Example of Community-Controlled epidemiology in Canada......Page 179
An Example of the Epidemiology of Local Knowledge in Mexico......Page 181
Implications of Popular and Lay Epidemiology for Practice......Page 182
Anthropological Offerings......Page 183
How Epidemiologists Create Epidemics and Other Reactions......Page 186
III. A Few Lessons and Opportunities......Page 188
FOR FURTHER READING......Page 189
8 Conclusion......Page 190
I. Epidemiology, Proof and Judgment......Page 192
II. Conclusions about Defining Disciplines: Defended Border versus Semi-permeable Membrane......Page 194
References......Page 197
Index......Page 221