Medical Anthropology announces the addition of op-ed contributions in each issue

Medical Anthropology announces the addition of op-ed contributions in each issue from experts and world-renowned scholars who recognize and explain the issues in health, illness, and medicine that matter in your life and the lives of others.

The op-ed contributions in each issue of Medical Anthropology provide commentary and opinion on the human stories of health and illness. These timely responses highlight the social conditions and cultural frameworks central to health beliefs and medical behavior of individuals, of families, and of societies.

In 2008 Medical Anthropology announced the addition of op-ed contributions in each issue from experts and world-renowned scholars who recognize and explain the issues in health, illness, and medicine that matter in your life and the lives of others.

The first in this series by Dr. Hans A. Baer (Melbourne), examined the impact of global warming on health and human societies (27:1). Dr. João Biehl (Princeton) followed with a discussion of the relations between pharmaceutical commerce and public health care with respect to global AIDS treatment initiatives (27:2). In the current issue (27:3), Heather Battles (McMaster) and Dr. Lenore Manderson (Monash) comment on the “Ashley Treatment” and its implications in regards to the public debate on the care of children with profound and multiple disabilities. In the final issue of 2008 (27:4), Dr. Vincanne Adams (UC-San Francisco) and colleagues outlined the need for “Global Health Diplomacy” which attends to the “dual goals” of improving global health and bettering international relations, with special concern for “conflict areas” and “resource-poor environments.” Dr. Sarah Pinto (Tufts) kicked off 2009 (28:1) with commentary on the "challenges" that an ethical language of abandonment used in psychiatric hospitals in India poses for families.

In the current issue (28:3) a plague of medical anthropologists wade into the timely issue of the H1N1 flu. Dr. Mark Nichter (Arizona) and Dr. Charles Briggs (UC-Berekely) comment upon the flu and the discourse about biosecurity and global health citizenship that surrounds it. It is their opinion that medical anthropology is absolutely crucial for a better informed public able to determine the factors and actors involved in knowledge production used in 'fighting' pandemics such as H1N1. Dr. Merrill Singer (Connecticut) raises important questions concerning the capacity of medical anthropology to respond usefully to such disease outbreaks and their health and social consequences. Finally, Dr. Laëtitia Atlani-Duault (Nanterre Paris X University) and Dr. Carl Kendall (Tulane) consider the under-discussed social effects of a truly massive global catastrophe that include the issues of communication, responding to predictable inappropriate reactions, preparation of populations for these effects, or using local population resources in the epidemic.

Stay tuned to each and every issue of Medical Anthropology – a truly international forum for medical anthropology – for more exciting, timely, and crucial insights in the social and cultural conditions at home and worldwide that impact health and medicine.

Swine Flu and Syndemics

While this CNN news report is already slightly out of date--in that the U.S. has recorded a swine flu death, and there are more cases recorded than are reported here--the account is of importance from the perspective of medical anthropology in that it draws attention to why Mexico may be experiencing a more lethal outbreak, namely the syndemic factor: the interaction of the flu with other diseases and social conditions.

Google Trends and (self?) Surveillance...Mapping Flu Queries

From the Guardian.uk

Google predicts spread of flu using huge search data
• Site claims it beats existing services by two weeks
• Technology could be used to warn of other illnesses

Google has applied its massive data-collecting power for the first time to prediction of the spread of disease, with the launch of a site that claims to be able to raise the alarm over flu outbreaks up to two weeks in advance of existing public services.

Google Flu Trends takes the general search tracking technology pioneered by Google Trends and applies it specifically to influenza. The firm's engineers claim to have devised a way of analysing millions of individual searches related to the disease that in tests proved to correlate closely with the actual incidence of illness. That gives them the potential ability to predict rises in flu cases - information that could be used by health professionals to warn the public or plan their responses.

Google found that if it assembled a cluster of queries people used when they were worried about flu - such as "flu symptoms", "chest congestion" or "where to buy a thermometer" - the aggregated trends were a strong indicator of flu levels across America.

This is a fascinating use of technology, and rather than immediately jump on the skeptic bandwagon, we're curious to see how this (quite literally) maps onto reality... Obvious considerations/concessions revolve around access to computers and the internet (i.e. with large enough sample size, does it matter that some lack access to internet with which to "google"?), as well as how the use of these maps/trends would better existing surveillance.

Dont get me wrong, I'm a map/stats geek, so I'm very curious to see what happens, just sufficiently skeptical...

How it works, according to Google...

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