Thurka Sangaramoorthy

American University Washington D.C. | AU · Department of Anthropology

There is an inherently powerful and complex paradox underlying HIV/AIDS prevention—between the focus on collective advocacy mobilized to combat global HIV/AIDS and the staggeringly disproportionate rates of HIV/AIDS in many places. In Treating AIDS, Thurka Sangaramoorthy examines the everyday practices of HIV/AIDS prevention in the United States fr...

Ethnography is a core methodology in anthropology and other disciplines. Yet, there is currently no scholarly consensus on how to teach ethnographic methods—or even what methods belong in the ethnographic toolkit. We report on a systematic analysis of syllabi to gauge how ethnographic methods are taught in the United States. We analyze 107 methods...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2 . Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19 resp...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic1,2. Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19 r...

Historically, ethnographic methods were learned by cultural anthropology students in individual research projects. This approach creates challenges for teaching in ways that respond to the next generation's calls to decenter anthropology's White, heteropatriarchal voices and engage in collaborative community-based research. Analyzing syllabi from 1...

Anthropological approaches to “immigrant mental health” as an object of ethnographic inquiry can illuminate how psychosocial well-being – or decline – and the therapeutic realm of mental health is always enacted by a variety of institutions and social actors. The ways that mental health is understood and approached across different geographical and...

Unmet needs can impede optimal care engagement, impacting the health and well-being of people living with HIV (PLWH); yet, whether unmet needs differ by care engagement status is not well understood. Using surveys and qualitative interviews, we examined and compared unmet needs for PLWH (n = 172) at different levels of care engagement. Unmet needs...

HIV/AIDS exceptionalism promoted compassion, garnered funding, built institutions, and shaped regulatory and research agendas under emergency conditions. Globally, however, HIV/AIDS exceptionalism has further fragmented fragile health service delivery systems in vulnerable, marginalized communities and created perverse incentives to influence serop...

Little progress has been made to advance U.S. federal policy responses to growing scientific findings about cumulative environmental health impacts and risks, which also show that many low income and racial and ethnic minority populations bear a disproportionate share of multiple environmental burdens. Recent scholarship points to a “standard narra...

This commentary addresses the possibilities and pitfalls of putting intersectionality and syndemics into conversation with each other. We engage with two studies (2020) published in this issue: the first on the health-related vulnerabilities among LGBTQ+ Latinx men in Orlando after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and the other on syndemic health issu...

Many people deny that pervasive racism shapes colleges and how it's reproduced through routine, less overt acts of harm, argue Thurka Sangaramoorthy and Joseph B. Richardson Jr.

Political myth-making about America’s rural “heartland” is doubly pernicious, increasing rural vulnerability to COVID-19 and ignoring the disintegration of rural health services.

Mexican women constitute an increasing proportion of labor migrants to the United States. They are segregated into a handful of low‐wage occupations, disadvantaged by global economic forces and the social construction of gender within employment relations. Drawing on ethnographic research from Maryland's Eastern Shore, I explore experiences of ever...

Evidence suggests that racial disparities in the HIV care continuum persist in older age groups, particularly among African Americans. The objective of this systematic review was to identify factors that facilitate or hinder older African Americans’ engagement in the HIV care continuum. For studies published between 2003 and 2018, we: (1) searched...

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) represents a group of conditions that occur as a result of severe immunosuppression related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. HIV/AIDS is an incurable medical condition and a complex global pandemic. Although significant strides have been made in the last thirty years to stem the devastating...

In 2011, Maryland established the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative to determine whether and how gas production in the state could be accomplished without causing unacceptable risks to public health, safety, natural resources, and the environment. This initiative required a statewide health impact assessment of unconventional natural gas dev...

It is widely recognized that Americans are exposed daily to multiple chemical compounds in our air, food, water, and consumer products, and that many low income and racial and ethnic minority populations bear a disproportionate share of these exposures. Significant research investments have been made to develop methods to assess the combined effect...

Growing numbers of immigrants work and live in rural, geographically isolated areas throughout the United States, places without previously settled immigrant populations. Rapid immigration to such areas already struggling with poverty, weak public infrastructures, and high concentrations of uninsured residents has given way to an increasingly preca...

Anthropologists challenge threats to health care coverage for immigrants and people living with disability in the United States.

In biomedical, public health, and popular discourses, the ‘end of AIDS’ has emerged as a predominant way to understand the future of HIV research and prevention. This approach is predicated on structuring and responding to HIV in ways that underscore its presumed lifelong nature. In this article, I examine the phenomenon of HIV chronicity that unde...

Background: Congenital syphilis (CS) disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minority women, especially in the US South. While CS is relatively easy and inexpensive to prevent through screening and treatment of pregnant women, CS cases have continued to rise and are concentrated in relatively few US counties and states. In 2010, Louisiana had...

Immigration to rural areas in new receiving communities like Maryland's Eastern Shore is growing. Despite a rapid rise in immigration and diminishing health system resources, little attention has been focused on barriers to health care access in this region for immigrants. A total of 33 in-depth key informant interviews with providers and immigrant...

Drawing on comparative ethnographic fieldwork conducted in urban Mozambique, the United States, and Sierra Leone, the article is broadly concerned with the globalization of temporal logics and how specific ideologies of time and temporality accompany health interventions, such as those for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and AIDS (HIV/...

Increased funding, targeted prevention efforts and better treatment have helped to slow down the HIV epidemic in the United States. The number of new HIV-positive cases has decreased significantly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the number of new HIV diagnoses declining by 19 percent from 2005 to 2014. This...

HIV-related stigma is a barrier to the prevention and treatment of HIV. For midlife and older Black women, the nature and intensity of HIV-related stigma may be compounded by their multiple marginalised social status based on gender, race, and age. We examined the perceptions and experiences of HIV-related stigma among midlife and older Black women...

U.S. natural gas production increased 40% from 2000 to 2015. This growth is largely related to technological advances in horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Environmental exposures upon impacted communities are a significant public health concern. Noise associated with natural gas compressor stations has been identified as a m...

Additional summary statistics for 24-hour A-weighted noise levels (dBA) by proximity to nearest compressor station stratified by location within home (indoors vs. outdoors). (DOCX)

Stigma is recognized as a barrier to the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV, including engagement in the HIV care continuum. HIV stigma in older Black women may be compounded by pre-existing social inequities based on gender, age, and race. Using semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires, we explore experiences of HIV stigma, retenti...

Black Lives Matter and Reflections from a Civil War

Public Commentary in Savage Minds

The Devil Wears J.Crew: Exploring the Trauma of Forced Assimilation – Medium

We examined community perspectives and experiences with fracking in Doddridge County, West Virginia, USA as part of a larger assessment to investigate the potential health impacts associated with fracking in neighboring Maryland, USA. In November 2013, we held two focus groups with community residents who had been impacted by fracking operations an...

The recent growth of unconventional natural gas development and production (UNGDP) has outpaced research on the potential health impacts associated with the process. The Maryland Marcellus Shale Public Health Study was conducted to inform the Maryland Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Commission, State legislators and the Governor a...

Recent studies have documented frequent use of female sex workers among Latino migrant men in the southeastern United States, yet little is known about the context in which sex work takes place or the women who provide these services. As anthropologists working in applied public health, we use rapid ethnographic assessment as a technical assistance...

Abstract Few studies have explored how overall general health care and HIV/STI testing experiences may influence receipt of "Seek, Test, Treat, and Retain" (STTR) HIV prevention approaches among Black men in the southern United States. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with 78 HIV-negative/unknown Black men in Georgia, we explored factors influ...

Black men in the USA experience disproportionately high rates of HIV infection, particularly in the Southeastern part of the country. We conducted 90 qualitative in-depth interviews with Black men living in the state of Georgia and analysed the transcripts using Sexual Script Theory to: (1) characterise the sources and content of sexual scripts tha...

Although the production of national spaces, citizens, and populations through enumerative practices has been well explored in a variety of disciplines, anthropological methods and analysis can help to illuminate the everyday practices of enumeration, their unexpected consequences, and the co-construction of identities through these processes by bot...

Using ethnographic data, I focus on how people living with HIV/AIDS in Miami, Florida come to know and govern themselves through quantification and categories of risk, race, and ethnicity. I explore the various levels of surveillance that structure HIV/AIDS prevention programs and highlight how "numerical subjectivities" circulate, how identity and...

Background: Timely testing and adequate treatment can prevent congenital syphilis. In 2010, Louisiana had the highest congenital syphilis rate (49.8 per 100,000) in the United States. Shreveport reported 11 of the state’s 32 congenital syphilis cases. Because few mothers had received recommended prenatal care, been tested, or been treated for syphi...

Background A growing number of studies indicate frequent use of female sex workers among migrant Latino men in the US South, yet little is known about the context in which sex workers and clients interact, or the women who provide these services. The Latino population in North Carolina has increased 400% since 1990; most of these are young, unaccom...

Issues: Despite an HIV racial disparity among Black men that transcends sexual behavioral risk categories and an international HIV prevention focus that emphasizes targeting all sexually active men, the United States continues to exclusively sensationalize and target individual behavioral risks among Black men who have sex with men (MSM) and secret...

Background: Black men in the Southeastern United States suffer from the highest rates of HIV in the country, regardless of sexual identification category or geographical location. Little research, however, has explored meaningful intra-racial comparisons of geographical contexts that include how mental health determinants and coping strategies fact...

Using the scholarship on transnationalism and citizenship, this paper examines the politics of difference in HIV/AIDS prevention programmes in the United States and their impact on Haitian migrants and immigrants. It finds that there is a tremendous amount of complex movement of knowledge production and expertise among various constituents who work...