Epidemiology and Culture [Paperback]

This book reveals unexamined assumptions and shows how sociocultural context influences measurement of disease.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.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.Demonstrating how practitioners in the emerging field of cultural epidemiology describe human health, communicate with diverse audiences, and intervene to improve health and prevent disease, this book uses textual and statistical portraits of disease to describe interdisciplinary collaborations. Interpreting epidemiology as a cultural practice helps to reveal the ways in which measurement, causal thinking, and intervention design are influenced by belief, habit, and theories of power.1. Introduction; 2. The origins of an integrated approach in anthropology and epidemiology; 3. Disease patterns and assumptions: unpacking variables; 4. Cultural issues in measurement and bias; 5. Anthropological contributions to the study of cholera; 6. Anthropological and epidemiological collaboration to help communities become healthielÃ"