Health Sciences Communications
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: Nov. 8, 999
Contact: Holly Korschun, 404-727-3990 or hkorsch@emory.edu

Center for the Study of Health, Culture and Society Fosters Global Health Perspective

In conducting research for her thesis, Cindy Ma evaluated the practice of Pakistani birth attendants to apply ghee, ash and cow dung to umbilical cords, a common cultural and spiritual practice that contributes to soaring rates of tetanus. At the same time, another Fellow at the Center for the Study of Health, Culture, and Society examined the feasibility of developing culturally sensitive HIV/AIDS prevention programs to target heterosexual men in the Dominican Republic. While these topics seem to share little in common, they both seek to illustrate the interplay of health, culture and society.

Since its inception in 1993, the Center for the Study of Health, Culture, and Society has sought to create a common meeting ground for social and health scientists, humanists and health professionals. The center has sponsored two fellowship programs: CSHCS Interdisciplinary Fellowships which encourages Emory arts and sciences doctoral students to study public health-and visa versa, and Mellon/Sawyer Seminar Program Fellowships.

Fellows have conducted research on topics ranging from the identification of social programs that successfully help women escape cycles of intimate partner violence, to the intersection of health and culture in Native American and Latino populations, and special needs of eunuch transvestites of Hyderbad, India, known as kothis.

One former fellow is now working to prevent anemia among pregnant women in Guatemala and another is researching the role of intrauterine growth retardation as a possible cause of metabolic disease later in life, particularly obesity and cardiovascular disease, which are rising dramatically in many developing nations.

The center also sponsors the Program for Advanced Research on Health and Society in Africa. Activities include course development, creation of on-going relationships with research institutions and programs in Africa, and various workshops and seminars. Students in the program have collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Kenya Medical Research Institute to determine the effectiveness of bed nets to reduce child mortality from malaria in some 60,000 households in parts of Kenya, which have some of Africa's highest rates of malaria.

Visit the center's website at: http://www.emory.edu/CSHCS.

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