Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
391
result(s) for
"Singer, Merrill"
Sort by:
Anthropology of infectious disease
\"This book synthesizes the flourishing field of anthropology of infectious disease in a critical, biocultural framework. Leading medical anthropologist Merrill Singer holistically unites the behaviors of microorganisms and the activities of complex social systems, showing how we exist with pathogenic agents of disease in a complex process of co-evolution. He also connects human diseases to larger ecosystems and various other species that are future sources of new human infections. Anthropology of Infectious Disease integrates and advances research in this growing, multifaceted area and offers an ideal supplement to courses in anthropology, public health, development studies, and related fields\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Syndemics and the biosocial conception of health
The syndemics model of health focuses on the biosocial complex, which consists of interacting, co-present, or sequential diseases and the social and environmental factors that promote and enhance the negative effects of disease interaction. This emergent approach to health conception and clinical practice reconfigures conventional historical understanding of diseases as distinct entities in nature, separate from other diseases and independent of the social contexts in which they are found. Rather, all of these factors tend to interact synergistically in various and consequential ways, having a substantial impact on the health of individuals and whole populations. Specifically, a syndemics approach examines why certain diseases cluster (ie, multiple diseases affecting individuals and groups); the pathways through which they interact biologically in individuals and within populations, and thereby multiply their overall disease burden, and the ways in which social environments, especially conditions of social inequality and injustice, contribute to disease clustering and interaction as well as to vulnerability. In this Series, the contributions of the syndemics approach for understanding both interacting chronic diseases in social context, and the implications of a syndemics orientation to the issue of health rights, are examined.
Journal Article
Is Pollution the Primary Driver of Infectious Syndemics?
Syndemics, the adverse interaction of two or more coterminous diseases or other negative health conditions, have probably existed since human settlement, plant and animal domestication, urbanization, and the growth of social inequality beginning about 10–12,000 years ago. These dramatic changes in human social evolution significantly increased opportunities for the spread of zoonotic infectious diseases in denser human communities with increased sanitation challenges. In light of a growing body of research that indicates that anthropogenic air pollution causes numerous threats to health and is taking a far greater toll on human life and wellbeing than had been reported, this paper proposes the possibility that air pollution is now the primary driver of infectious disease syndemics. In support of this assertion, this paper reviews the growth and health impacts of air pollution, the relationship of air pollution to the development and spread of infectious diseases, and reported cases of air pollution-driven infectious disease syndemics, and presents public health recommendations for leveraging the biosocial insight of syndemic theory in responding to infectious disease.
Journal Article
An Update on Syndemics: Editorial Comments
The theory of syndemics hypothesizes that observed clusters of diseases in specific temporal and geographical contexts are the result of harmful socio-environmental conditions resulting in mutually enhancing deleterious consequences [...]
Journal Article
The occupational syndemics of miners in South Africa
Occupational exposures in the large industrial mining sector contributed significantly to South Africa’s high excess death rate due to COVID-19. Historically poor work-protection oversight has perpetuated centuries of risky labor and living conditions within the industry, driving high levels of disease co-morbidities, and supporting enduring social vulnerabilities. In this paper, we offer a syndemic lens to consider the clustering of adversely interacting diseases among mineworkers in South Africa, drawing attention to the complex occupational health crisis and the need to move beyond simply reporting individual diseases or comorbidities among this population. The physically demanding and dangerous working conditions, the lack of adequate changes to crowded and unsanitary working and living situations, the failure to meet social and labor plan targets, the continued precarious nature of working contracts and mines, and the limited access to robust healthcare reflect the historically exploitative nature of industrial mining in South Africa that places miners at increased risk for various syndemics. This assessment of the adverse interactions of diseases and socioeconomic and political conditions highlights the need for focused research and more follow-through in comprehensive occupational reforms.
Journal Article
Conceptualizing COVID-19 syndemics: A scoping review
Background
COVID-19’s heavy toll on human health, and its concentration within specific at-risk groups including the socially vulnerable and individuals with comorbidities, has made it the focus of much syndemic discourse. Syndemic theory recognizes that social factors create the conditions that support the clustering of diseases and that these diseases interact in a manner that worsens health outcomes. Syndemics theory has helped to facilitate systems-level approaches to disease as a biosocial phenomenon and guide prevention and treatment efforts. Despite its recognized value, reviews of syndemics literature have noted frequent misuse of the concept limiting its potential in guiding appropriate interventions.
Objective
To review how the term ‘syndemic’ is defined and applied within peer-reviewed literature in relation to COVID-19.
Design
A scoping review of definitions within COVID-19 literature published between January 1, 2020 to May 15, 2023 was conducted. Searches took place across six databases: Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, JSTOR, MEDLINE/Pubmed, PsycINFO and Scopus. PRISMA-ScR guidelines were followed.
Results
Content analysis revealed that COVID-19 has varied clustered configurations of communicable–non-communicable diseases and novel communicable disease interactions. Spatial analysis was presented as a new strategy to evidence syndemic arrangements. However, syndemics continue to be regarded as universal, with continued misunderstanding and misapplication of the concept.
Conclusion
This review found that current applications of syndemics remain problematic. Recommendations are made on the design of syndemic studies. A syndemic framework offers an opportunity for systems-level thinking that considers the full complexity of human-disease interactions and is useful to inform future pandemic preparations and responses.
Journal Article
A companion to the anthropology of environmental health
A Companion to the Anthropology of Environmental Health presents a collection of readings that utilize a medical anthropological approach to explore the interface of humans and the environment in the shaping of health and illness around the world.
* Features the latest ethnographic research from around the world related to the multiple impacts of the environment on health and of societies on their environments
* Includes contributions from international medical anthropologists, conservationists, environmental experts, public health professionals, health clinicians, and other social scientists
* Analyzes the conditions of cultural and social transformation that accompany environmental and ecological impacts in all areas of the world
* Offers critical perspectives on theoretical and methodological advancements in the anthropology of environmental health, along with future directions in the field
eBook
Can ecological modernisation contain climate change?: An eco-socialist perspective
Ecological modernisation is the process of seeking environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation and adaptation through the adoption of more efficient, environmentally sustainable, and low-carbon energy sources and manufacturing processes. It has become a virtually hegemonic stance, particularly in the European Union but also in North America, Australasia, and China (Machin 2019). Dieter Helm (2017: 245) exhibits the hubris of ecological modernisation in his bold assertion that climate change is a 'solvable problem only with the march of new technologies'.
Journal Article
Respiratory health and ecosyndemics in a time of global warming
Respiratory risks to human health are on the rise around the globe, at least in part, because anthropogenic environmental changes are increasing and multiplying the likelihood of respiratory disease comorbidity and disease interaction, a health consequence termed an ecosyndemic. The immediate objective of this paper is to examine the nature and growing prevalence of ecosyndemics under conditions of mounting environmental imbalance and climate change as exemplified by asthma and other increasingly frequent respiratory diseases. More broadly, the paper seeks to contribute to increased understanding of the critical role of syndemics in shaping global health and the value of a political ecology of respiratory health perspective.
Journal Article