As faculty in the Joint Program in Medical Anthropology (UCSF/UC Berkeley), I am committed to making a contribution to knowledge and insight about the interface between health and the harm that arises from that which cannot be strictly called biological. I have published on a range of topics, including ethnomedicine and global health, the politics of medical knowledge, post disaster climate harm, metrics, safe motherhood, social justice, agrochemical industries and academic capitalism.
Louise Aronson, MD MFA, is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, professor of medicine at UCSF and the author of the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Aronson has received the Gold Professorship in Humanism in Medicine, the California Homecare Physician of the Year award, and the American Geriatrics Society Clinician-Teacher of the Year award.
I conduct a variety of studies, primarily qualitative in approach, examining the experience and meaning of health and illness to various communities or patient groups. Understanding how non-health professionals conceptualize, recognize and respond to risks to health or well-being and act (or not act) to prevent or minimize risks has been an interest threaded throughout many of my projects which are focused on understanding health disparities and vulnerable populations.
Alissa Bernstein, PhD, MPH, MA is a medical anthropologist and health policy researcher focused on understanding and improving the assessment, diagnosis, and care of people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, with a specific focus on primary care in safety net settings. She also conducts research focused on care navigation to support people with dementia and their caregivers and building palliative care approaches in memory care settings. Dr.
Dr. Paul D. Blanc MD MSPH is Professor of Medicine and holds the Endowed Chair in Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, where he has been on faculty since 1988. He received his BA from Goddard College (Plainfield, Vermont), where he first became interested in health and the environment, later training at the Harvard School of Public Health (in industrial hygiene), the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, and Cook County Hospital (in a joint Occupational Medicine and Internal Medicine Residency).
Dr. Burke is an affiliated Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine. She is also a member of the Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center and Co-Director of the UC-Cuba Academic Initiative. In 2015 she became Chair of Public Health at the University of California, Merced. She has conducted research in Cuba and the U.S. on social and cultural processes associated with chronic disease management, clinical trials recruitment and participation, and disparities in cancer prevention, treatment and survivorship.
Research:
My research is centered on the contextual issues of treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, and related diseases, in socially marginalized populations. My long-term objective is to combine ethnographic and epidemiological research to explore the intricate socio-behavioral-medical issues of medication adherence, access to care and risk taking behaviors, particularly related to drug use and drug users. My work, including collaborations, has been published in JAMA, NEJM, PLoS Medicine, AJPH, JAIDS and other peer-reviewed journals.
Dan Dohan is Professor of Health Policy, Surgery, and Humanities and Social Sciences at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. He received his PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley. His publications address medical sociology, health policy, culture and inequality, and ethnographic research methods. He has written one book, The Price of Poverty: Money, Work, and Culture in the Mexican-American Barrio (UC Press 2003).
