In 1999 I was a post-doctoral fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Health, Culture & Society, with funding from the Mellon Foundation to participate in a Sawyer Seminar on “Defining the Public Health.” I carried out a research project comparing two public health institutions, which had recently weathered internal crises after failing to detect resurgent TB epidemics, both involving multi-drug-resistant TB (MDRTB) — one in New York City, and the other in Lima, Peru. The study addressed neoliberal economics as a causal factor for resurgent TB, and the roles of medical and international health cultures and politics in the failures of TB divisions in health departments of both cities.
The project resulted in a book chapter on the comparative study in the volume Emerging Illnesses and Society, edited by Randall Packard, et al. (2004) & an article in Medical Anthropology (2005) on the Peru controversy between the Ministry of Health and an NGO affiliated with Paul Farmer which challenged the WHO model used by Peru for TB (which left scores of patients with a fatal disease untreated, and also perversely amplified the incidence of MDRTB in barrios of the capital.)
Links to text of both research articles are on the HOME page. A short report is in the Emory CSHCS Newsletter (Sept. 1999). (click on link & scroll down to find report)
I was an invited speaker on two panels dealing with drug resistance at the 2006 AAA meeting, and have been invited to write a chapter comparing cultural aspects of Directly Observed Therapy for TB in Peru and NY City for a book collection under review at Routledge Press.
Link to website of Socios en Salud, the Lima-based NGO I studied, which is affiliated with Partners in Health, Boston, is at far left.
