Anthropology’s Contribution to Public Health Policy development

Campbell, Dave

doi:10.26443/mjm.v13i1.239

Cited by 17 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Therefore, it is vital that social analyses be prioritized as policymakers and community members navigate the ever-shifting landscape of the crisis, as there are no easy one-size-fitsall approaches or policies that are effective for the vastly unique communities encumbered by COVID-19 [29][30][31][32]. As illustrated in this literature review of studies conducted around the world in LMICs, socio-cultural contexts and the minutiae of lived experience are paramount for any effective engagement or development of appropriate and participatory public health policy and intervention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community-Level Experiences, Understandings, and Responses to COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Qualitative and Ethnographic Studies

Raymond

Ward

2021

IJERPH

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(1) Background: COVID-19 disruptions offer researchers insight into how pandemics are at once biological and social threats, as communities struggle to construct meaning from novel challenges to their ontological status quo. Multiple epistemes, in which public health imperatives confront and negotiate locally derived knowledge and traditions, vie for legitimacy and agency, resulting in new cultural forms. (2) Methods: To investigate the context and construction of community responses, a systematic review of qualitative literature was conducted with the aim of evaluating those insights provided by empirical, social field research in low- and middle-income countries since the onset of COVID-19. Six scholarly databases were searched for empirical, qualitative, field-based, or participatory research that was published in peer-reviewed journals between December 2019 and August 2021. (3) Results: Twenty-five studies were selected for data extraction, following critical appraisal for methodological rigor by two independent reviewers, and were then analyzed thematically. Faced with unprecedented social ruptures, restrictions in social and physical mobility, and ever-looming uncertainties of infection, financial insecurity, stigma, and loss, communities worldwide reacted in multiple and complex ways. Pervasive misinformation and fear of social rejection resulted in noncompliance with pandemic sanctions, resistance, and increased isolation, allowing the spread of the disease. The meaning of, and understandings about, COVID-19 were constructed using traditional, religious, and biomedical epistemologies, which were occasionally in conflict with each other. Innovations and adaptations, through syntheses of traditional and biomedical discourses and practice, illustrated community resilience and provided models for successful engagement to improve public health outcomes. (4) Conclusion: Local context and community engagement were indispensable considerations when enacting effective public health interventions to meet the challenges of the pandemic.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community-Level Experiences, Understandings, and Responses to COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Qualitative and Ethnographic Studies

Raymond

Ward

2021

IJERPH

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“…However, Argenti-Pillen (2003: 170) asserts that the 'global flow of knowledge on war trauma' and the concerted investment by the Sri Lankan Government and NGO's to treat PTSD have imposed Western-centric values, based on universal clinical paradigms, progressively eradicating indigenous sources of local knowledge and practice, ultimately undermining community and social cohesion. She explains that formal PTSD interventions have catalysed a social transformation amongst women that has brought with it a categorisation of the 'fearless' woman who no longer needs or sees these spiritual rituals of cleansing as useful (Campbell, 2011;Lindholm, 2008;Watters, 2010). As Lindholm (2008) explains, these women become '.…”

Section: Understanding Cultural Dimensions Of Distress and The Challenges Of Euphemistic Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural brokers in mental health care in Sri Lanka’s North

Arambewela-Colley

2021

Cultural Dynamics

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This article engages in an anthropological analysis of brokerage to investigate the role of community support officers (CSOs) and mental health clinicians working on implementing post conflict reconstruction and reconciliation projects in Jaffna, in the North of Sri Lanka. I propose that CSOs and mental health clinicians become cultural brokers in health care by operating beyond the universal clinical assumptions associated with mental illness and distress, navigating the space and interrelationship between community-based local voices, national health priorities and the translocal agendas of the global mental health framework. The CSOs and mental health clinicians’ scope of authority, the complexity of their social and cultural activities along with their agentive capacity in representing marginalised voices enables them to facilitate, be responsible for and actively influence the process of intermediation and translation; in other words, they engage in brokerage. This article provides insights into the socio-cultural matrix of mental distress and suffering in post-conflict affected communities in the North of Sri Lanka and builds on brokerage theory to recognise evolving social and political landscapes in translocal mental health diagnosis and treatment.

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“…By engaging with communities, past and present, anthropologists lead the social and scientific discussion concerning the relationship between the environment and human culture; their findings inform public health discussions, policies, and laws (Dennis, 2013;Fahlman, 2019;Kiefer, 2007;Page-Reeves et al, 2013;Stellmach et al, 2018); and they have the power to affect meaningful social change (Campbell, 2011;Kiefer, 2007). In studying respiratory health in communities that inhabited various environments, I hope to contribute to our understanding of the health impacts of pollution and poverty.…”

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confidence: 99%

Perspectives on Health: Working with Communities as Cultural Anthropologists and Bioarchaeologists

Purhcase¹

2020

ESJ

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The anthropological study of health has always been an integral part of the discipline. With the development of cultural anthropology and physical anthropology (specifically, bioarchaeology) in the nineteenth century came different theories and methodologies concerning the study and definition of communities. Still today, cultural anthropology and bioarchaeology share the same broad goals of exploring the evolving relationships between experiences of health and the community, culture, and environment (being natural, domestic, political, and social). That cultural anthropologists study extant cultures and bioarchaeologists do not has necessitated the evolution of different methodological practices. Here, I explore some of the differences between these two sub-disciplines: their differing notions of community, how they engage with communities, and the relevance of their work to the communities they study. I contextualize this analysis with a short discussion of the sub-disciplines’ co-evolution and ground it with examples from my research with middle Holocene Siberian, Russian Federation, and Anglo-Saxon to Post-Industrial British communities.

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Anthropology’s Contribution to Public Health Policy development

Abstract: N/A

Cited by 17 publications

References 8 publications

Community-Level Experiences, Understandings, and Responses to COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Qualitative and Ethnographic Studies

Community-Level Experiences, Understandings, and Responses to COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Qualitative and Ethnographic Studies

Cultural brokers in mental health care in Sri Lanka’s North

Perspectives on Health: Working with Communities as Cultural Anthropologists and Bioarchaeologists

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