Epidemiology and Culture

by James A. Trostle

• ISBN13: 9780521793896
• ISBN10: 0521793890
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-02-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book shows how practitioners in the emerging field of 'cultural epidemiology’ describe human health, communicate with diverse audiences, and intervene to improve health and prevent disease. It uses textual and statistical portraits of disease to describe past and present collaborations between anthropology and epidemiology. Interpreting epidemiology as a cultural practice helps to reveal the ways in which measurement, causal thinking, and intervention design are all influenced by belief, habit, and theories of power. By unpacking many common disease risks and epidemiologic categories, this book reveals unexamined assumptions and shows how sociocultural context influences measurement of disease. Examples include studies of epilepsy, cholera, mortality on the Titanic, breastfeeding, and adolescent smoking. The book describes methods as varied as observing individuals, measuring social networks, and compiling data from death certificates. It argues that effective public health interventions must work more often and better at the level of entire communities.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	ix
Foreword	xi
S. Leonard Syme
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	1	(20)
Patterns of Disease and Patterns of Culture	1	(2)
Epidemiology and Medical Anthropology	3	(5)
Applying an Integrated Cultural-Epidemiological Approach	8	(13)
For Further Reading	20	(1)
The Origins of an Integrated Approach in Anthropology and Epidemiology	21	(21)
Scientific Attention to the Social Environment in the Nineteenth Century	22	(4)
Epidemiology and Medical Anthropology in Collaboration	26	(12)
Continuity and Change in Twenty-First-Century Projects Integrating Anthropology and Epidemiology	38	(4)
For Further Reading	41	(1)
Disease Patterns and Assumptions: Unpacking Variables	42	(32)
The Origins and Meanings of Disease-Pattern Categories	42	(5)
Assumptions about Defining and Measuring Variables	47	(1)
Aspects of the Category Person	48	(15)
Aspects of Place	63	(5)
Aspects of Time	68	(4)
Conclusion	72	(2)
For Further Reading	73	(1)
Cultural Issues in Measurement and Bias	74	(22)
Introduction	74	(5)
Bias in Epidemiology and Its Anthropological Counterparts	79	(6)
Data Collection as Social Exchange	85	(6)
Data Collection and the Challenges of Human Attention	91	(2)
Social and Cultural Aspects of Clinical Trials as a Form of Data Collection	93	(3)
For Further Reading	95	(1)
Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Cholera	96	(26)
The Pervasiveness of Diarrhea: Implications for Epidemiology	98	(2)
Cholera: The So-Called Natural History of a Diarrheal Disease	100	(3)
Cholera in Latin America: A Sociocultural History of Disease	103	(16)
Conclusion: Is Cholera a Signpost?	119	(3)
For Further Reading	121	(1)
Anthropological and Epidemiological Collaboration to Help Communities Become Healthier	122	(28)
Introduction	122	(13)
The Community in Public Health Interventions	135	(4)
Anthropological Participation in Population Interventions	139	(3)
The Tools of Intervention Research: An Anthropological Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials	142	(6)
Conclusion	148	(2)
For Further Reading	149	(1)
Perceiving and Representing Risk	150	(18)
Popular and Professional Ideas about Risk	150	(11)
Communicating about Risk, Meance, and Safety	161	(5)
A Few Lessons and Opportunities	166	(2)
For Further Reading	167	(1)
Conclusion	168	(7)
Epidemiology, Proof and Judgment	170	(2)
Conclusions about Defining Disciplines: Defended Border versus Semi-permeable Membrane	172	(3)
References	175	(24)
Index	199