Linda Whiteford

University of South Florida | USF · Department of Anthropology

Hurricane Charley made landfall in southwest Florida, USA on August 13, 2004. It caused devastation in several coastal counties before moving rapidly north-northeastwards through the state. While storm surge and flooding were minimal, the destruction from high winds was extensive. Hurricane Charley was the most intense storm to make landfall in Flo...

This chapter considers the nexus and adds sanitation systems to our analysis. It argues that those systems, and how they are controlled, reflect the social dynamics of race, class, and gender bias of their political–ecological settings. The chapter shows how water and sanitation systems themselves are amplifiers of health outcomes, and how their fa...

With new chapters on key topics such as mental health, the environment, race, ethnicity and health, and pharmaceuticals, this new edition maintains its multidisciplinary framework and bridges the gap between health policy and the sociology of health. It builds upon the success of the first by encompassing a range of issues, studies, and disciplines...

After a massive hurricane devastated Belize's south coast in 2001, “sustainable tourism” was the national government's answer to spurring economic redevelopment. Since then, the communities of the Placencia Peninsula, in particular, have engaged in rapid tourism development as an economic strategy for securing local livelihoods, culminating in the...

We examine social aspects of risk perception in seven sites among communities affected by a flood in Mexico (one site), as well by volcanic eruptions in Mexico (one site) and Ecuador (five sites). We conducted over 450 interviews with questions about the danger people feel at the time (after the disaster) about what happened in the past, their curr...

Background Soil transmitted helminth infections (STHI) are important Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD), particularly Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiuraand hookworms. STHI significantly affects growth and development of children, especially in low-income developing countries. This study aims to determine the prevalence of STHI among school go...

One of the greatest obstacles to improving critical water infrastructures (e.g., drinking water, storm water, waste water) for public health protection in low Human Development Index (HDI) countries is developing engineered solutions that are socially, culturally, and geographically relevant. Such “context-sensitive” interventions demand multisecto...

It is well established that roughly twice as many women as men after disasters experience posttraumatic stress, and that their mean levels of posttraumatic stress are slightly to moderately higher. Social support is often a buffer for these impacts, but not always. Social responsibilities can exacerbate postdisaster stress. To seek a better underst...

Following the 2010–2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, many nonprofit organizations changed or expanded services to address emergent or compounded risks. This research is based on interviews with thirty local community nonprofit managers and discussions with five staff focus groups conducted in 2014. Preexisting nonprofits with flexible...

The environmental engineering discipline has focused much of its historical efforts in developing regions of the world on advancing environmental sustainability through improving provision of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. However, the skills and expertise that reside within the discipline of environmental engineering are fundament...

Access to and perceptions of water seem to be changing. To some people water is seen as scarce and almost magical; to others it is an underappreciated, plentiful resource. Whether through the creation of dams, increased groundwater pumping, or changing water allocation among states and regions, water is moving due to human intervention. In this cha...

Comparative health systems research examines the similarities and differences between and among health policies, practices, institutions, and outcomes in different countries in order to examine the effects of health reforms, the ways in which international initiatives are adapted to suit local needs and interests, and the strategies different healt...

This article reviews writings about water with a focus on health from the social and behavioral sciences. In addition, issues related to the equitable distribution of water resources such as potable water and their health consequences are discussed. A case study of one water-related disease (cholera) is used to exemplify the inexorable consequences...

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake on February 22, 2011 set over 60 percent of the downtown and over 6,000 homes in suburban Christchurch, New Zealand, for demolition. Migrants and refugees settled in Christchurch relied on the joint efforts of familiar nonprofits to provide information and supplies in the initial response and recovery phase. As the recove...

Natural wastewater treatment systems have been used for centuries to recover resources through agriculture and aquaculture water reuse. Because the management of wastewater using natural methods relies on the integration of environmental, engineered, economic, and social systems, pathogens cannot be effectively monitored and controlled in these sys...

Communities and individuals rely on third-sector organizations (TSOs) following natural disasters to complement formal government recovery activities by providing targeted support. In this way, TSOs can fulfill important niche roles, but the picture becomes complicated if residents and organizations relocate and connectivity is lost. Recovery might...

Within the context of major changes in economics, population distribution, and lifestyles around the world, people continue to rely on personal relationships for support. People also often create or find themselves in relationships that are alternatively asymmetrical or balanced. In this study, we are interested in how people face acute or chronic...

Anthropology and global health have long been a focus of research for both biological and medical anthropologists. Research has looked at physiological adaptations to high altitudes, community responses to water-borne diseases, the integration of traditional and biomedical approaches to health, global responses to HIV/AIDS, and more recently, to th...

Each year, more than 30 million people worldwide are displaced by disaster, development, and conflict. The sheer magnitude of displacement points to a need for wider application of social science theories and methodologies to the special problems posed by these crises. We are convinced that social network analysis of the structure and development o...

Each year, more than 30 million people worldwide are displaced by disaster, development, and conflict. The sheer magnitude of displacement points to a need for wider application of social science theories and methodologies to the special problems posed by these crises. We are convinced that social network analysis of the structure and development o...

The devastating eruptions of Mount Tungurahua in the Ecuadorian highlands in 1999 and 2006 left many communities struggling to rebuild their homes and others permanently displaced to settlements built by state and nongovernmental organizations. For several years afterward, households diversified their economic strategies to compensate for losses, c...

Women are frequently considered more vulnerable and generally experience higher levels of stress than do men in disaster environments. This is due in minor part to biological differences between men and women (e.g., pregnancy, nursing, physical strength, various hormone levels, differences in daily caloric intake strategies/metabolism), but is due...

A social network framework was used to examine how vulnerability and sustainability forces affect community resilience through exposure, evacuation and resettlement. Field work, undertaken in volcanically active areas in Ecuador and Mexico, involved structured questionnaires and ethnographic studies of residents and their social networks, and inter...

One of the consequences of rapid tourism expansion is abrupt pressure on local keystone resources such as water and energy. While novel wastewater technologies have been designed to close resource cycles and thereby diminish resource stress, little research has been undertaken to assess the coupled social, economic, and ecological components of sys...

Using the cascade of effects model, this chapter discusses the impacts chronic hazard conditions can have on environment, economy, social capital, and health. In particular, this chapter investigates these impacts through the lens of provisioning capacity in order to understand the vulnerability and resilience of the populations. Looking specifical...

This article, as all of the articles included in this volume, focuses on how “community engagement” and “public scholarship” are being used by public universities to reshape their relations with the students attending the university, and with the communities and other partners with whom the university is engaged. Changing the rules of engagement is...

Although virtually all comparative research about risk perception focuses on which hazards are of concern to people in different culture groups, much can be gained by focusing on predictors of levels of risk perception in various countries and places. In this case, we examine standard and novel predictors of risk perception in seven sites among com...

Although virtually all comparative research about risk perception focuses on which hazards are of concern to people in different countries—regardless of whether they have directly experienced a hazard or disaster or not—much can be gained by focusing on predictors of the level of concern in particular countries and places. The comparative approach...

In a chronic risk environment such as a community near an active volcano, uncertainty intertwines with fear and can seriously damage people's physical and emotional health, and stress family interpersonal conditions. In the case described here, we present information about families' responses to living around an active volcano in Ecuador, South Ame...

SynonymsEmergency migration; Flight; Mass departures; RelocationDefinitionEvacuation: The temporary or permanent relocation of people from hazardous environments to minimize injuries and deaths from disasters.Evacuation contextIn 1999, approximately 25,000 people were evacuated from communities around the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador. Fears of a m...

Many of the discussions related to technology in academia focus on the processes of innovation and the adaptation of technologies to suit the needs of users, rather than issues of access to technology and inequalities in its distribution. Medical travel, the process through which individuals leave their place of origin in search of medical services...

IntroductionThe Anthropology of WaterA Medical Anthropology Perspective on Water and HealthThe Case of Cholera - A Water-Borne EpidemicThe Case of Dengue Fever - A Vector-Borne OutbreakAnthropology and Water PolicyConclusion References

Keywords: natural hazard, social network, evacuation, resettlement, disaster, ecology and environment

Objectives To identify the factors which determine timely health care-seeking behaviors for childhood ARIs. Methods A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to a non-random purposive sample of 91 female caregivers (age 18-57 years), and was analyzed using SPSS. In addition, six focus group discussions with female caregivers and 25 in-depth...

Objectives: To identify the factors which determine timely health care-seeking behaviors for childhood ARIs. Methods: A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to a non-random purposive sample of 91 female caregivers (age 18-57 years), and was analyzed using SPSS. In addition, six focus group discussions with female caregivers and 25 in-d...

Disease in the History of Modern Latin America: From Malaria to AIDS. Diego Armus, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. 326 pp.From Popular Medicine to Medical Populism: Doctors, Healers, and the Public Power in Costa Rica 1800–1940. Steven Palmer. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. 329 pp.

A Public Health and Disaster Mitigation Model: Case Studies from Ecuador - Volume 20 Issue S1 - L. Whiteford, G. Tobin, T. Mason

Being able to imagine the future requires a selective memory of the past as conceptualized from the present. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, W. H. R. Rivers, and others are used to exemplify the continuity between past and future in applied medical anthropology as seen from the contextual history of the Society for Applied Anthropology.

In 1999, the entire population of tourism-dependent Baños, Ecuador, some 16,000 people, was evacuated in anticipation of a violent eruption of Mount Tungurahua. Subsequently, many areas in the risk zone experienced heavy ash falls, lahars, and landslides, although no cataclysmic events occurred. Many small rural communities were also evacuated. Whi...

T HE TWENTIETH CENTURY HAS BEEN REFERRED TO as the age of displaced persons and refugees. According to the United Nations High Commis-sion on Refugees, the number of people who are forced out of their homes through life-altering events such as geophysical disasters (volcanic erup-tions, floods, and earthquakes), political conflicts, ethnic warfare,...

Official response to explosive volcano hazards usually involves evacuation of local inhabitants to safe shelters. Enforcement is often difficult and problems can be exacerbated when major eruptions do not ensue. Families are deprived of livelihoods and pressure to return to hazardous areas builds. Concomitantly, prevailing socio-economic and politi...

Health care providers can give their patients better care if they understand how their patients view pregnancy and birth. This article provides some examples of how women from various cultural backgrounds understand pregnancy and how these beliefs affect women's decisions to seek prenatal care and to utilize prenatal services regularly throughout t...

This article employs an ethnoecological analysis to link indigenous, ethnomedical, and Western biomedical ideas of infectious disease causation/prevention. The ethnoecological analysis is expanded to include the cultural and historical context of political will and community participation in dengue fever control activities in an urban neighborhood...

In some areas of the United States pregnant women are incarcerated if they are addicted to illegal substances, particularly crack cocaine. However, incarceration does not happen to all pregnant addicts, but instead reflects racial/ethnic and socioeconomic categories of prejudice. In the following article, the authors suggest that analysis of this p...

The following article promotes active community participation whereby peri-urban neighbourhood residents monitor environmental health conditions. An effective and sustainable community based environmental assessment and management programme relies on such participation. The authors suggest a combination of methodologies to incorporate community mem...

Infertility is experienced by 5 million U.S. couples, some of whom perceive it a stigmatizing condition. Recent technological innovations have created a multitude of medical interventions for those infertile individuals who can financially afford them. For some infertile women, those interventions also transform infertility from a private pain to a...

Health planners often conceptualize improved public health infrastructures, such as the provision of sanitary facilities, as keys to improved public health results. These improvements alone, however, rarely result in the anticipated health improvements. Changes in hygiene behavior, that is, in the way in which people utilize their existing resource...

The following article suggests that the current economic crisis in the Dominican Republic could have serious consequences for the health of women and children. Health status will be affected both indirectly and directly by the crisis: that indirect effect can be seen in changes in dietary patterns, increased nutritional risk, increased incidence of...

This article traces the development of health care policies in the Dominican Republic from their colonial and neo-colonial roots to contemporary times. The Dominican case exemplifies the unique historical processes by which its health policies were created and maintained, and simultaneously, reflects the political and historical forces that shape t...

This article applies a critical medical anthropology perspective to an analysis of primary health care in the Caribbean. It takes an historical view of the development of a primary health system in the Dominican Republic and argues that both the development and dissolution of that system can be understood only in light of U.S. foreign policy. Prima...

The Crossroads of Class and Gender: Industrial Homework, Subcontracting and Household Dynamics in Mexico City. Lourdes Beneria and Martha Roldan Women In Culture and Society Series. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. xll. 204 pp. $42.00 (cloth) ISBN 0-226-04231-6; $15.95 (paper) ISBN 0-226-04232-4.

Horror stories abound: findings or carefully designed and executed research projects ignored; good programs lost because decision makers failed to see their relevance; problems not solved because key people lacked access to information; crucial data not collected or not presented in usable form. There are many circumstances in which research result...