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This article addresses anthropology's engagement with the emerging discipline of global health. We develop a definition for global health and then present four principal contributions of anthropology to global health: (a) ethnographic studies of health inequities in political and economic contexts; (b) analysis of the impact on local worlds of the assemblages of science and technology that circulate globally; (c) interrogation, analysis, and critique of international health programs and policies; and (d) analysis of the health consequences of the reconfiguration of the social relations of international health development.

Section I: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives -- Introduction: Medical Anthropology and Epidemiology -- Early Work in Anthropology and Epidemiology: From Social Medicine to the Germ Theory, 1840 to 1920 -- Anthropology and Epidemiology in the Twentieth Century: A Selective History of Collaborative Projects and Theoretical Affinities, 1920 to 1970 -- Section II: Infectious Diseases -- Epidemiological Research on Infectious Disease: Quantitative Rigor or Rigormortis? Insights from Eth-nomedicine -- Ethnicity, Ecology, and Mortality Transitions in Northwestern Thailand -- The AIDS Epidemic in San Francisco: Epidemiological and Anthropological Perspectives -- Section III: Non-Infectious Diseases -- Migration and Hypertension: An Ethnography of Disease Risk in an Urban Samoan Community -- The Meaning of Lumps: A Case Study of the Ambiguities of Risk -- Section IV: Psycho-Social Conditions -- Colonial Stress in the Canadian Arctic: An Ethnography of Young Adults Changing -- Respondent-Identified Reasons for Change and Stability in Alcohol Consumption as a Concomitant of the Aging Process -- Identifying Psychosocial Disorders in Children: On Integrating Epidemiological and Anthropological Understandings -- List of Contributors -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects.

The Sustainable Development Goals call for the effective governance of shared natural resources in ways that support inclusive growth, safeguard the integrity of the natural and physical environment, and promote health and well-being for all. For large-scale resource extraction projects -- e.g. in the mining sector -- environmental regulations and in particular environmental impact assessments (EIA) provide an important but insufficiently developed avenue to ensure that wider sustainable development issues, such as health, have been considered prior to the permitting of projects. In recognition of the opportunity provided in EIA to influence the extent to which health issues would be addressed in the design and delivery of mining projects, an international and intersectoral partnership, with the support of WHO and public funds from Canadian sources, engaged over a period of six years in a series of capacity development activities and knowledge translation/dissemination events aimed at influencing policy change in the extractives sector so as to include consideration of human health impacts. Early efforts significantly increased awareness of the need to include health considerations in EIAs. Coupling effective knowledge translation about health in EIA with the development of networks that fostered good intersectoral partnerships, this awareness supported the development and implementation of key pieces of legislation. These results show that intersectoral collaboration is essential, and must be supported by an effective conceptual understanding about which methods and models of impact assessment, particularly for health, lend themselves to integration within EIA. The results of our partnership demonstrate that when specific conditions are met, integrating health into the EIA system represents a promising avenue to ensure that mining activities contribute to wider sustainable development goals and objectives. ; Canadian Institutes of Health Research || WHO || Canadian International Development Agency

Epidemiologic studies have consistently reported associations between outdoor fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution and adverse health effects. Although Asia bears the majority of the public health burden from air pollution, few epidemiologic studies have been conducted outside of North America and Europe due in part to challenges in population exposure assessment. We assessed the feasibility of two current exposure assessment techniques, land use regression (LUR) modeling and mobile monitoring, and estimated the mortality attributable to air pollution in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We developed LUR models for predicting wintertime spatial patterns of NO2 and SO2 based on 2-week passive Ogawa measurements at 37 locations and freely available geographic predictors. The models explained 74% and 78% of the variance in NO2 and SO2, respectively. Land cover characteristics derived from satellite images were useful predictors of both pollutants. Mobile PM2.5 monitoring with an integrating nephelometer also showed promise, capturing substantial spatial variation in PM2.5 concentrations. The spatial patterns in SO2 and PM, seasonal and diurnal patterns in PM2.5, and high wintertime PM2.5/PM10 ratios were consistent with a major impact from coal and wood combustion in the city's low-income traditional housing (ger) areas. The annual average concentration of PM2.5 measured at a centrally located government monitoring site was 75 μg/m3 or more than seven times the World Health Organization's PM2.5 air quality guideline, driven by a wintertime average concentration of 148 μg/m3. PM2.5 concentrations measured in a traditional housing area were higher, with a wintertime mean PM2.5 concentration of 250 μg/m3. We conservatively estimated that 29% (95% CI, 12–43%) of cardiopulmonary deaths and 40% (95% CI, 17–56%) of lung cancer deaths in the city are attributable to outdoor air pollution. These deaths correspond to nearly 10% of the city's total mortality, with estimates ranging to more than 13% of mortality under less ...

Scholarship on the health impacts of resource extraction displays prominent gaps and apparent corporate and neocolonial footprints that raise questions about how science is produced. We analyze production of knowledge, on the health impacts of mining, carried out in relation to the Canadian International Resources and Development Institute (CIRDI), a university-based organization with substantial extractive industry involvement and links to Canada's mining-dominated foreign policy. We use a "political ecology of knowledge" framework to situate CIRDI in the context of neoliberal capitalism, neocolonial sustainable development discourses, and mining industry corporate social responsibility techniques. We then document the interactions of specific health disciplinary conventions and knowledges within CIRDI-related research and advocacy efforts involving a major Canadian global health organization. This analysis illustrates both accommodation and resistance to large-scale political economic structures and the need to directly confront the global North governments and sectors pushing extractive-led neoliberal development globally. Resumen La investigación sobre los impactos en la salud de la extracción de recursos naturales delata brechas importantes y huellas corporativas y neocoloniales, que plantean dudas acerca de cómo se produce la ciencia. Analizamos la producción de conocimiento sobre los impactos en la salud de la minería en relación con el Instituto Canadiense de Desarrollo y Recursos Internacionales (CIRDI, siglas en inglés), una organización universitaria que cuenta con participación sustancial de la industria extractiva y tiene vínculos con la política exterior de Canadá, la cual es dominada por intereses mineros. Utilizamos un marco de "ecología política del conocimiento" para situar a CIRDI en el contexto del capitalismo neoliberal, los discursos neocoloniales de desarrollo sostenible y las técnicas de responsabilidad social corporativa de la industria minera. Luego, documentamos las interacciones entre ...