Demonstrating how practitioners in the emerging field of "cultural epidemiology" describe human health, communicate with diverse audiences, and intervene to improve health and prevent disease, this book uses textual and statistical portraits of disease to describe interdisciplinary collaborations. Interpreting epidemiology as a cultural practice helps to reveal the ways in which measurement, causal thinking, and intervention design are influenced by belief, habit, and theories of power.
This is a fascinating look at the cross-disciplines of epidemiology and anthropology and how they can function together to provide better more comprehensive results.
This was a textbook for my Medical Anthropology course. Like most textbooks, it was rather heavy reading and I got bogged down in the mire of anthropological theory. It does make a good case for combining epidemiological studies with anthropology, but if it weren't required reading for my course, I wouldn't have wasted my time.