Addressing Health Disparities: What Role Can An Anthropologist Play?

Kathryn Coe - Director of Shared Service for Special Populations, Arizona Cancer Center, University of Arizona

Abstract: This is the time of year when the President’s budget for the next fiscal year is determined. The National Institutes of Health, taking into account that funding, at best, may be level, will develop priorities based largely on the social burden posed by particular ailments and the state of science and the likelihood that research funding will lead to concrete discoveries. One priority area that is unlikely to change --  health disparities, or differences in such things as health risk, health outcomes, and access to health care.  – touches on interests and skills of anthropologists. For decades, anthropologists have focused their studies not only on the social, cultural and economic forces and processes that effect health behaviors and that produce unequal patterns of health and illness, but also issues of cultural, social, and biological variability and social change. These interests, and the skills that guide their study, hold significant promise for developing research and programs surrounding health disparities. In this presentation I describe several NIH-funded programs addressing health disparities, in which I have played a lead role. I conclude my presentation with a discussion how I imagine my program of research in the next decade can help reduce disparities in the Southwest.