Peter Brown
About Peter Brown
Peter Brown, Professor of Anthropology in Emory College is also a Professor in the Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health. He has won four teaching awards at Emory. He is Director of the Center for Health, Culture and Society, as well as Senior Academic Advisor to the Emory Global Health Institute. Last year, he began a new minor in Emory College called Global Health, Culture and Society. He has served as the President of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association and was the editor-in-chief of Medical Anthropology for a decade. His research is in Medical Anthropology examines human- environment interactions in relation to disease incidence, social epidemiology and economy. He has focused on malaria, and serves on a WHO Scientific Advisory Committee regarding that disease. Another line of research examines cultural factors in obesity and chronic disease, particularly in relation to male gender. He has edited Anthropology and Infectious Disease, Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology, and Applying Anthropology.
I am going to be with GHD as part of a sabbatical during the upcoming Fall semester; I am not exactly sure how I will contribute. I have a passion for teaching, My appointment is in Anthropology in Emory's undergraduate college and in the SPH. I recently started an undergraduate minor program in "Global Health, Culture and Society" that has attracted much student interest. As a medical anthropologist i am a generalist, but i have research interests in malaria as well as chronic disease related to obesity.
I am looking forward to sitting in on these courses this July. I am certain that I will learn a lot. Last year I taught an undergraduate seminar on "Global Health Leadership in Historical Perspective," and I realized how little I know about this area.
Role(s) / Profession(s)
- Academic
Organization
- Rollins School of Public Health
Work Location(s)
- United States
Peter's Communities
Language(s)
Recent Contributions
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Peter Brown replied to "Rapid test and microscopic exam(GE) for malaria" in the Malaria Treatment & Prevention community.
Hi-- I don't have any answers, but some more questions: a) isn't the real problem when the RDT is negative? b) I assume that the epidemiological context (level of endemicity, season) is important in the "clinical context" -- if so, the discussion started by Prashant on 12/7 might be relevant. c) There are many RDTs out there -- which ones have the lowest discordance rates?
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Peter Brown started a discussion "How much of childhood fever is actually malaria?" in the Malaria Treatment & Prevention community.
This is related to questions of diagnostics and the fact that clinicians typically treat for malaria when RDTs are negative. The question of the proportion of childhood fevers that are actually malaria is a reasonable one. Of course is all depends on context, but... I found this study by D'Acremont and colleagues presented at MIM to be really fascinating. In these urban and rural Tanzanian populations the researchers used all possible diagnostic tests to determine ...
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Peter Brown replied to "Traditional medicines for malaria" in the Malaria Treatment & Prevention community.
Kileken summarizes this ongoing debate very well. Of course, underneath this argument is a culture clash. The biomedical scientists and WHO want to take ethnomedicines and discover (and then regulate) their effective biochemical components. It is part of science to look for the "magic bullet" and understand the biochemical and physiological processes. This is the standard approach which some social theorists would call "hegemonic" (i.e it delegitimizes and pushes out other conceptual frameworks). An important ...
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Peter Brown replied to "MIM Conference-Categories of Research" in the Malaria Treatment & Prevention community.
Thanks for this reply. The point that the distribution of MIM papers does not reflect the distribution of research funding is well taken. I really meant to raise the funding issue as a question because I do not know where that data might be. I assume that the largest proportion of funding is for lab-based research. I also assume that field-based vector biology research does not garner appropriate attention. I guess my main point -- ...
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Peter Brown replied to "MIM Conference-Categories of Research" in the Malaria Treatment & Prevention community.
By the way, do people think that there is "commited long term leadership" in contemporary antimalaria efforts??? I taught a seminar the other year on global health leadership in historical perspective. I ended up still being a bit confused about the factors that make for successul leadership.
Recent Recommendations
- None at this time.