Anacleto Palabay, a young Filipino domestic worker in Washington, D.C., was intent on returning home to the Philippines. His soon-to-be wife was waiting there for him and he was eager to build a life with her after making money while living in the United States. Palabay’s story was a common one among Filipina/o migrants to… Read more →
Tag: Public Health
The Congella Mangrove Story: A Colonial Durban Econarrative
At the mouth of the Umgeni River in Durban, South Africa, sits a small patch of mangrove trees. Birds flit between branches, while black and red crabs pull fallen mangrove leaves into their holes. Boardwalks wind through the trees, allowing visitors a glimpse of Durban’s ecological past. The Beachwood Mangroves are what remains of the… Read more →
Have Crisis, Feed Kids
“Here is public health’s bind,” wrote science journalist Ed Yong recently in The Atlantic: “Though it is so fundamental that it can’t (and arguably shouldn’t) be tied to any one type of emergency, emergencies are the one force that can provide enough urgency to strengthen a system that, under normal circumstances, is allowed to rot.”… Read more →
Bodies in the Way: Delhi’s Dead and the Pressures of Space
In 1930, Delhi’s residents were sorely in need of a new hospital. The city’s population had ballooned by more than 30% over the previous decade, but its infrastructure had failed to keep pace.1 The overburdened Civil Hospital warned that it was struggling to provide care to twice as many patients as it was designed to… Read more →
Architecting a “New Normal”? Past Pandemics and the Medicine of Urban Planning
COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere. Months into the global pandemic, when many parts of the world have entered a second wave of outbreaks, health experts have cautioned the need for a “new normal” in which medical precautions guide most of our daily activities. Since cities have been hit hardest by the pandemic, policymakers have begun discussing… Read more →
From Alfred Fournier to Anthony Fauci: Targeting Public Health Messages to Teens
Communication about the causes, effects, and prevention of COVID-19 is plentiful in the United States. Press briefings and congressional testimony have aired live; news stories offer highlights and guidance to the public. An increasing number of resources help parents talk with their young children about the pandemic, too. None of the media discussing COVID-19, however,… Read more →
Absolutely Disgusting: Wet Markets, Stigma Theory, and Xenophobia
Since the initial descriptions of cases of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, there has been a persistent focus on “wet markets” and their role in spreading the virus. Wet markets are similar to farmers’ markets, offering stalls selling fresh meat and produce, with some markets featuring the slaughtering of animals on-site, which can – albeit… Read more →
Dr. Fauci and My Mom
In these scary times, many of us find comfort in watching Dr. Anthony Fauci on TV. I like seeing Dr. Fauci for another reason: he rekindles memories of my mom, who died in 1990. Dr. Fauci was my mother’s doctor. For five years in the 1980s, she was a patient at the National Institute of… Read more →
“The Mommy Instinct” and Vaccinations
“Mommy instincts:” that’s what Jenny McCarthy called them.1 You know, those innate feelings you get about your kids when they’re lying to you, or right before they knock over that glass jar on the counter. These instincts kick in about kids’ health, too. It’s a sense of detecting what other people can’t. And since Jenny… Read more →
Eyes of the Beholder: The Public Health Service Reports on Trachoma in White Appalachia and Indian Country
In 1912, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) set out to survey trachoma rates among two populations: Appalachian Whites in Kentucky and American Indians. I knew about the American Indian survey from my dissertation research on Native health in the early twentieth century. But when I read the report from that study, I was… Read more →