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Cover -- Title page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I. POPULAR HEALTH CULTURE -- 1. Perceptions of Ethnophysiology Matter -- 2. Representations of Illness Causality and Vectors That Transmit Disease -- 3. Why Is Research on Local Illness Categories Important? -- 4. Perceptions of Pharmaceuticals and Quality of Care -- PART II. RHETORIC MATTERS -- 5. Representations That Frame Health and Development Policy -- 6. Representations of Health Status and Social Formations -- 7. NGOs, Social Capital, and the Politics of the Possible -- PART III. FUTURE RESEARCH -- 8. Toward a Next Generation of Social Science Research in Global Health -- References -- Index -- About the Author.

In this invited commentary on the thematic issue of Transcultural Psychiatry on idioms of distress, concern, and care, I provide a brief overview of how my research agenda evolved over the years while conducting community and clinic-based research in South and Southeast Asia as well as North America. I then suggest areas where future research on idioms of distress, concern, care, and resilience will be needed among different demographics given social change and shifts in how we communicate face to face and in virtual reality, the impact of medicalization, pharmaceuticalization and bracket creep, changes in indigenous healing systems, and hybridization. I further call attention to the importance of conducting idioms guided research in occupational settings. Toward this end I highlight the moral distress health care workers in the U.S. have experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic and point out the importance of differentiating individual burnout from moral injury related to structural distress. I conclude by discussing the general utility of an idioms of distress perspective in the practice of cultural psychiatry and suggest that this perspective needs to be included in the training of all practitioners regardless of the system of medicine they practice. Doing so may enable the formation of mental health communities of practice in contexts where there are pluralistic health care arenas.

This article supports the call for the sensorially engaged anthropological study of healing modalities, popular health culture, dietary practices, drug foods and pharmaceuticals, and idioms of distress. Six concepts are of central importance to sensorial anthropology: embodiment, the mindful body, mimesis, local biology, somatic idioms of distress, and `the work of culture'. Fieldwork in South and Southeast Asia and North America illustrates how cultural interpretations associate bodily sensations with passions (strong emotions) and anxiety states, and bodily communication about social relations. Lay interpretations of bodily sensations inform and are informed by local understanding of ethnophysiology, health, illness, and the way medicines act in the body. Bodily states are manipulated by the ingestion of substances ranging from drug foods (e.g., sources of caffeine, nicotine, dietary supplements) to pharmaceuticals that stimulate or suppress sensations concordant with cultural values, work demands, and health concerns. Social relations are articulated at the site of the body through somatic modes of attention that index bodily ways of knowing learned through socialization, bodily memories, and the ability to relate to how another is likely to be feeling in a particular context. Sensorial anthropology can contribute to the study of transformative healing and trajectories of healthcare seeking and patterns of referral in pluralistic healthcare arenas.

This article describes STI and HIV transmission knowledge and risk perception for undocumented Nicaraguan labor migrant women in semirural Costa Rica. Within all of Latin America, HIV prevalence is highest in the subregion of Central America; in rural areas it is increasing among heterosexual women. The mixed methods study included semistructured questionnaires administered in face‐to‐face interviews with 43 undocumented Nicaraguan migrant women in a three‐interview series. Questionnaire items included sociodemographic variables and general knowledge about STIs and HIV modes' of transmission and sources of education. Risk vignettes and follow‐up questions were administered to assess culturally available prevention strategies as well as STI and HIV risk perception. As a mode of prevention, condom use is not culturally available to this population because of symbolic meanings behind requests to use them. Ethnographic results revealed that condom use is not culturally available to heterosexual women migrants in marital unions, there is a general knowledge of modes of transmission and prevention, yet communication between partners could be improved. Future interventions must address cultural concepts that shape risk perception as well as social risks perceived in the prevention of STI and HIV transmission.

This article investigates the interplay of natural and human systems with reference to the growing global problem of antibiotic resistance. Among the diverse causes of antibiotic resistance, we focus broadly on three related causes: pharmaceutical practice and the liberal consumption of antibiotics, the use of antibiotic-containing products in the home, and the use of antibiotics in commercial animal husbandry and agriculture. We draw a parallel between pesticide and antibiotic resistance and examine whether lessons learned from one case may be applicable to the other. Although our main focus is a microecological analysis examining how humans are changing their environments, our conclusion addresses larger implications of this problem for global health. Through the theoretical lens of political ecology, we ask how we may address the "tragedy of the antibiotic commons" through public education and consumer activism as well as global health governance.

An intervention developed to teach young men in the urban slums ofLucknow, India, about sexually transmitted diseases is described in detail. This community‐based intervention was designed to impart core educational messages and to address preexisting ideas about sexual health and STD‐prevention practices among participants. Indicators of knowledge recorded before and after the intervention are presented and evaluated against the scores of a control group. Levels of sexual activity and factors associated with risky sex are discussed. The intervention was successful in raising the young men's awareness ofSTDs significantly in all areas except for the length of time that symptoms take to manifest following risky sex and the ineffectiveness of washing one's genitals after sex to avoid acquiring STDs. Lessons learned during the intervention are described as a means of informing future STD‐education programs, and issues requiring prompt attention are identified.