Stigma Syndemics

Stigma Syndemics
Author: Bayla Ostrach
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2017-09-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498552153

Central to this volume, and critical to its unique creative significance and contribution, is the conceptual unification of syndemics and stigma. Syndemics theory is increasingly recognized in social science and medicine as a crucial framework for examining and addressing pathways of interaction between biological and social aspects of chronic and acute suffering in populations. While much research to date addresses known syndemics such as those involving HIV, diabetes, and mental illness, this book explores new directions just beginning to emerge in syndemics research – revealing what syndemics theory can illuminate about, for example the health consequences of socially pathologized pregnancy or infertility, when stigmatization of reproductive options or experiences affect women’s health. In other chapters, newly identified syndemics affecting incarcerated or detained individuals are highlighted, demonstrating the physical, psychological, structural, and political-economic effects of stigmatizing legal frameworks on human health, through a syndemic lens. Elsewhere in the volume, scholars examine the stigma of poverty and how it affects both nutritional and oral health. The common thread across all chapters is linkages of social stigmatization, structural conditions, and how these societal forces drive biological and disease interactions affecting human health, in areas not previously explored through these lenses.

Foundations of Biosocial Health

Foundations of Biosocial Health
Author: James Ziegler
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2017-05-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498552129

The chapters in Foundations of Biosocial Health: Stigma and Illness Interactions, drawn primarily from medical anthropology, highlight the diverse ways in which various stigmatized health conditions interact with social inequalities and stigma to form syndemics. The authors delineate multiple examples of stigma-driven syndemics to demonstrate both the nature of disease interactions and how stigma contributes to, promotes, exacerbates, or perpetuates a syndemic. In so doing, the authors also address how stigma translates from a social condition to various biological conditions. The authors’ contributions cover a variety of topics, including HIV, substance use, obesity, depression, homelessness, poverty,and political oppression. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and public health.

Introduction to Syndemics

Introduction to Syndemics
Author: Merrill Singer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2009-06-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0470483008

This book explains the growing field of syndemic theory and research, a framework for the analysis and prevention of disease interactions that addresses underlying social and environmental causes. This perspective complements single-issue prevention strategies, which can be effective for discrete problems, but often are mismatched to the goal of protecting the public's health in its widest sense. "Merrill Singer has astutely described why health problems should not be seen in isolation, but rather in the context of other diseases and the social and economic inequities that fuel them. An important read for public health and social scientists." —Michael H. Merson, director, Duke Global Health Institute "Not only does this book provide a persuasive theoretical biosocial model of syndemics, but it also illustrates the model with a wide variety of fascinating historical and contemporary examples." —Peter J. Brown, professor of Anthropology and Global Health and director, Center for Health, Culture, and Society, Emory University "The concept of syndemics is Singer's most important contribution to critical medical anthropology as it interfaces with an ecosocial approach to epidemiology." —Mark Nichter, Regents Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona "Merrill Singer offers the public the most comprehensive work ever written on this key area of research and policy making." —Francisco I. Bastos, chairman of the graduate studies on epidemiology, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz "Exquisitely describes how this new approach is a critical tool that brings together veterinary, medical, and social sciences to solve emerging infectious and non-infectious diseases of today's world." —Bonnie Buntain, MS, DVM, diplomate, American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine "For too long the great integrative perspectives on modern biomedicine and public health disease ecology and social medicine-have remained more or less separate. In this innovative and provocative book, Merrill Singer develops a valuable synthesis that will reshape the way we think about health and disease." —Warwick H. Anderson, MD, PhD, professorial research fellow, Department of History and Centre for Values, Ethics, and the Law in Medicine, University of Sidney

Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting

Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting
Author: Alexandra Brewis
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2019-11-19
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1421433362

How stigma derails well-intentioned public health efforts, creating suffering and worsening inequalities. 2020 Winner, Society for Anthropological Sciences Carol R. Ember Book Prize,Shortlisted for the British Sociological Association's Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize Stigma is a dehumanizing process, where shaming and blaming are embedded in our beliefs about who does and does not have value within society. In Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting, medical anthropologists Alexandra Brewis and Amber Wutich explore a darker side of public health: that well-intentioned public health campaigns can create new and damaging stigma, even when they are otherwise successful. Brewis and Wutich present a novel, synthetic argument about how stigmas act as a massive driver of global disease and suffering, killing or sickening billions every year. They focus on three of the most complex, difficult-to-fix global health efforts: bringing sanitation to all, treating mental illness, and preventing obesity. They explain how and why humans so readily stigmatize, how this derails ongoing public health efforts, and why this process invariably hurts people who are already at risk. They also explore how new stigmas enter global health so easily and consider why destigmatization is so very difficult. Finally, the book offers potential solutions that may be able to prevent, challenge, and fix stigma. Stigma elimination, Brewis and Wutich conclude, must be recognized as a necessary and core component of all global health efforts. Drawing on the authors' keen observations and decades of fieldwork, Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting combines a wide array of ethnographic evidence from around the globe to demonstrate conclusively how stigma undermines global health's basic goals to create both health and justice.

HIV Psychiatry

HIV Psychiatry
Author: James A. Bourgeois
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2021-11-18
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030806650

This book is a practical guide in understanding how to prevent HIV transmission, to recognize risk behaviors, and to add something else to their repertoires. It aims to empower clinicians and provide a sense of security and competence with the recognition and understanding of some of the psychiatric illnesses that complicate and perpetuate the HIV pandemic that continue to persist throughout every area of the world despite the magnitude of the progress that has transformed the illness from a rapidly fatal to chronic illness that is no longer life-limiting. Missing in most of the literature on HIV is the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, contribution of psychiatric symptoms, psychiatric illness, and risk behaviors that drive the pandemic and serve as catalysts for new infections. This practical guide provides state-of-the-art understanding of not only prevention but also a way to recognize risk behaviors, psychiatric symptoms, and psychiatric illnesses that will demystify and decode the sometimes enigmatic and frustrating reasons for nonadherence with diagnostic procedures and life-saving treatments and care. All behaviors and pathology are covered as well as the resources and treatments available. The goal of this text is to refresh knowledge on the current state of psychiatric illness management among people living with HIV, to provide a concise volume on the psychiatric aspects of HIV prevention and treatment that substantially impact the overall care of the patient, and to help understand the psychiatric catalysts of the pandemic Written by experts in the field, HIV Psychiatry: A Practical Guide for Clinicians provides enduring guidance to medical and other professionals caring for complicated clinical patients as they face ongoing challenges in working with persons with HIV and AIDS.

Collective Care

Collective Care
Author: Pamela Downe
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2020-12
Genre: HIV infections
ISBN: 1487587635

This engaging ethnography explores how Indigenous women and their communities practice collective care to sustain traditional lifeways in what has been called Canada's HIV hot zone.

Understanding the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the United States

Understanding the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the United States
Author: Eric R. Wright
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2016-07-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319340042

This book examines the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States using the concept of syndemics to contextualize the risk of both well-known, and a few lesser-known, subpopulations that experience disproportionately high rates of HIV and/or AIDS within the United States. Since discovery, HIV/AIDS has exposed a number of social, psychological, and biological aspects of disease transmission. The concept of “syndemics,” or “synergistically interacting epidemics” has emerged as a powerful framework for understanding both the epidemiological patterns and the myriad of problems associated with HIV/AIDS around the world and within the United States. The book considers the disparities in HIV/AIDS in relation to social aspects, risk behavior and critical illness comorbidities. It updates and enhances our understanding of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States and contributes to the expanding literature on the role of syndemics in shaping the public’s health.​

Post-AIDS Discourse in Health Communication

Post-AIDS Discourse in Health Communication
Author: Ambar Basu
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000510611

This book examines the discourse of a "post-AIDS" culture, and the medical-discursive shift from crisis and death to survival and living. Contributions from a diverse group of international scholars interrogate and engage with the cultural, social, political, scientific, historical, global, and local consumptions of the term "post-AIDS" from the perspective of meaning-making on health, illness, and well-being. The chapters critique and connect meanings of "post-AIDS" to topics such as neoliberalism; race, gender, and advocacy; disclosure; relationships and intimacy; stigma and structural violence; family and community; migration; work; survival; normativity; NGOs, transnational organizations; aging and end-of-life care; the politics of ART and PrEP; mental illness; campaigns; social media; and religion. Using a range of methodological tools, the scholarship herein asks how "post-AIDS" or the "End of the Epidemic" is communicated and made sense of in everyday discourse, what current meanings are circulated and consumed on and around HIV and AIDS, and provides thorough commentary and critique of a "post-AIDS" time. This book will be an essential read for scholars and students of health communication, sociology of health and illness, medical humanities, political science, and medical anthropology, as well as for policy makers and activists.

Silence and Sacrifice

Silence and Sacrifice
Author: Merav Shohet
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520976703

How do families remain close when turbulent forces threaten to tear them apart? In this groundbreaking book based on more than a decade of research set in Vietnam, Merav Shohet explores what happens across generations to families that survive imperialism, war, and massive political and economic upheaval. Placing personal sacrifice at the center of her story, Shohet recounts vivid experiences of conflict, love, and loss. In doing so, her work challenges the idea that sacrifice is merely a blood-filled religious ritual or patriotic act. Today, domestic sacrifices—made largely by women—precariously knot family members together by silencing suffering and naturalizing cross-cutting gender, age, class, and political hierarchies. In rethinking ordinary ethics, this intimate ethnography reveals how quotidian acts of sacrifice help family members forge a sense of continuity in the face of trauma and decades of dramatic change.

Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations

Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2021-01-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309680816

The increase in prevalence and visibility of sexually gender diverse (SGD) populations illuminates the need for greater understanding of the ways in which current laws, systems, and programs affect their well-being. Individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, non-binary, queer, or intersex, as well as those who express same-sex or -gender attractions or behaviors, will have experiences across their life course that differ from those of cisgender and heterosexual individuals. Characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity, and geographic location intersect to play a distinct role in the challenges and opportunities SGD people face. Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations reviews the available evidence and identifies future research needs related to the well-being of SDG populations across the life course. This report focuses on eight domains of well-being; the effects of various laws and the legal system on SGD populations; the effects of various public policies and structural stigma; community and civic engagement; families and social relationships; education, including school climate and level of attainment; economic experiences (e.g., employment, compensation, and housing); physical and mental health; and health care access and gender-affirming interventions. The recommendations of Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations aim to identify opportunities to advance understanding of how individuals experience sexuality and gender and how sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status affect SGD people over the life course.