The Philippines’ labor export system is a complex web of policy instruments that have been amended, repealed, and refined over the last four decades. The laws along with the hortatory tools used to promote them have shaped the lives of millions of Filipinos, separating families across oceans. Temporary labor migration,...
Lead is a ubiquitous environmental toxin known to cause neurological deficits in children. There is no biological need for lead and no safe level of lead in the body has ever been identified. Despite dramatic decline in mean blood lead levels nationwide since the U.S. EPA’s ban on lead-based paint...
Distress among resettled refugees in the U.S. consistently reflects refugees’ experiences of discrimination, re-traumatization, gaps in healthcare services, and disrupted expectations and lived-realities. This thesis aims to fill a critical need for ethnographic studies investigating how recent anti-immigrant, -Muslim, and -Arab rhetoric and policies combine with chronic gaps in services...
Haiti's political and economy history has led to a maternity care system that lies out of reach, geographically and financially, of most Haitians, resulting in excessively high maternal and infant mortality. The most common birth practitioners are homebirth midwives (matwòns), who attend roughly three-fourths of all births in Haiti (UNICEF),...
Exercise training has consistently been shown to increase fat utilization during exercise, while conflicting results have been reported on the effects of sex and age on fuel metabolism during exercise. PURPOSE: The primary objective of this investigation was to compare fat and carbohydrate utilization during exercise among males and females...
Physical geography and topography combined with increasing number of motor
vehicles have lead to record breaking air pollution levels in Tehran, the capital city of
Iran. The objectives of this study were: 1) to document trends in Tehran, Iran's
ambient air quality levels between 1988 and 1993; 2) to compare...
Despite the increase in information on the causes of foodborne disease, outbreaks continue to be a major preventable public health problem. Current food service establishment inspection programs, however, are not designed to assess the potential of risk for foodborne disease and do not focus prevention efforts where food service problems...
Cultural competence is a topic that concerns social scientists and medical anthropologists who pay attention to demographic changes and health disparities. This study demonstrates practical approaches to developing cultural competence in medical education by using factors from the social environment to develop protocols for action. With current concerns in domestic...
After 22 years of eruption at Kilauea Volcano, Hawai'i, an environmental, epidemiological, and ethnographic study was conducted to assess for adverse health effects from chronic exposure to volcanogernc air pollution. Environmental data from 2003 indicated that Kau District, from 37 to 74 km downwind from the eruption, was being exposed...
From July to September, 2002 I spent ten weeks in Kenya conducting full-time research on the macroeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS and community action towards combating the epidemic in locations dominated by members of the Luo tribe in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Gathering data from both the Ministry of Health and non-governmental...