Translating public health knowledge and technical capacity into public health action across cultural and social boundaries is often a challenge for those who participate in public health. The 15 case studies of this book illustrate anthropological concepts and methods that can help us understand and resolve diverse public health problems around the world. One case study shows how differences in concepts and terminology among patients, clinicians, and epidemiologists in a southwestern U. S. county hinder the control of epidemics. Another case study examines reasons that Mexican farmers don't use protective equipment when spraying pesticides and suggests ways to increase use. Another examines the culture of international health agencies, demonstrates institutional values and practices that impede effective public health practice, and suggests issues that must be addressed to enhance institutional organization and process. Anthropology in Public Health provides practical models and anthropological tools to improve the effectiveness of public health efforts around the world.
Marcia C. Inhorn PhD, MPH, is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs in the Department of Anthropology and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. She also serves as Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies.
Before coming to Yale in 2008, Inhorn was a professor of medical anthropology at the University of Michigan and president of the Society for Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association.
A specialist on Middle Eastern gender and health issues, Inhorn has conducted research on the social impact of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Arab America over the past 20 years. She is the author of three books on the subject, Local Babies, Global Science: Gender, Religion, and In Vitro Fertilization in Egypt (Routledge, 2003), Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt (U Pennsylvania Press, 1996) and Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions (U Pennsylvania Press, 1994), which have won the AAA's Eileen Basker Prize and the Diana Forsythe Prize for outstanding feminist anthropological research in the areas of gender, health, science, technology, and biomedicine.
She is also the editor or co-editor of six books, including Anthropology and Public Health: Bridging Differences in Culture and Society (Oxford U Press, 2009), Reproductive Disruptions: Gender, Technology, and Biopolitics in the New Millennium (Berghahn Books, 2007), and Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies (U California Press, 2002). She has been a visiting faculty member at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, where she has conducted studies on "Middle Eastern Masculinities in the Age of New Reproductive Technologies" and "Globalization and Reproductive Tourism in the Arab World." She is the founding editor of JMEWS (Journal of Middle East Women's Studies) of the Association of Middle East Women's Studies, and co-editor of the Berghahn Book series on "Fertility, Sexuality and Reproduction."
