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Posted 12-15-00
CLEVELAND -- Anthropologists at Case Western Reserve University have responded to the mandate from President Bill Clinton, Congress, and the Center for Disease Control to find out why disparities exist in minority health.
CWRU's Medical Anthropology Program offers a new academic concentration in urban health at the master's and doctoral levels. The concentration in urban health prepares students for careers in anthropology, public health, or allied fields, with a special focus on racial and ethnic disparities in health and under-served populations.
This concentration is part of an Urban Health Initiative designed to link the CWRU medical anthropology program with community organizations, health care providers, as well as other CWRU departments and professional schools.
The goal of this interdisciplinary collaboration is to identify and operationalize methods, analytical frameworks, and campus-community partnerships that contribute to the elimination of health disparities in Cleveland and urban areas around the world.
CWRU anthropologists Janet McGrath and Rachel Chapman are launching the new initiative. McGrath is an associate professor of anthropology who has worked on AIDS issues in Uganda. Chapman, an assistant professor of anthropology, has conducted research on maternal health in diverse Los Angeles neighborhoods and Mozambique.
"There is a real need for a new kind of health professional, a researcher with skills to understand and develop appropriate responses to the critical health issues faced by urban populations" says Chapman.
Urban populations in the United States increasingly struggle to maintain health and health services in communities plagued by the consequences of de-industrialization-unemployment, erosion of social services, and infrastructural deterioration.
"Faculty members bring their international experiences and expertise in studying health problems in Asia or Africa, for example, to the project of developing new ways to understand the social dimensions of health concerns in urban neighborhoods here in the United States," says McGrath.
Working with faculty who have both domestic and international research experience, students will learn anthropological theory and methods focusing on health and illness among urban populations. They will have opportunities to apply those skills by working on community health projects.
The CWRU initiative evolved from national mandates by Clinton, Congress, and the Center for Disease Control to address minority health disparities.
"This program will train a corps of people to engage in the kind of research and service needed to answer this call," says McGrath.
She adds, "Many of these new initiatives explicitly call for research that requires or benefits from anthropological methods. Graduates of the CWRU program will be well-positioned to work in this capacity."
While various medical and public health schools have implemented programs to tackle minorities' health disparities, McGrath says she believes CWRU's internationally recognized medical anthropology program is the first to offer this kind of concentration for its master's and doctoral students.
As part of the graduate experience, the anthropology department will develop a working relationship with community groups to find practical applications to overcome some of Cleveland's health problems in such areas as maternal and infant mortality rates-which in some neighborhoods rival those of a developing country.
"As anthropologists we frequently approach issues of health and healing from a non-medical perspective. We are interested in teasing out the social, cultural, and economic forces and processes that shape people's health-seeking behavior and produce or challenge unequal patterns of health and illness that we see around us," says Chapman. "This perspective may hold answers to old questions or new ways of reaching people who have either fallen through the system's cracks or have turned to alternative care."
She adds, "It has always been the work of anthropologists to peel away the multiple layers of human behavior and social organization. Statistics tell us just part of the story of racial/ethnic health disparities in our country. Anthropological work can expose the ideological, structural and material roots of ongoing problems."
McGrath concurs, saying, "The strength of the discipline is bringing it down to people's lives and fleshing out what the statistics mean in the context of how people live."
Initially, the University will provide support for three graduate students interested in pursuing this aspect of medical anthropology. The anthropologists also envision the concentration attracting students, who will seek the new master of public health degree from CWRU's School of Medicine.
The medical anthropology program also offers concentrations in cross-cultural aging, international health, medical anthropology, and psychological anthropology. For additional information, call 368-2264 or visit http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/anth/graduate.html.
These anthropology faculty members are associated with the medical anthropology program:
Other anthropology faculty members are Cynthia Beall (Andes, Tibet, Himalayas, Mongolia); Lawrence Greksa (Polynesia, South America, Old Order Amish), and Jim Shaffer (Middle East, Central Asia, Indus Valley).