Foundations of Biosocial Health: Stigma and Illness Interactions

The chapters in Foundations of Biosocial Health: Stigma and Illness Interactions, drawn primarily from medical anthropology, highlight the diverse ways in which various stigmatized health conditions interact with social inequalities and stigma to form syndemics. The authors delineate multiple examples of stigma-driven syndemics to demonstrate both the nature of disease interactions and how stigma contributes to, promotes, exacerbates, or perpetuates a syndemic. In so doing, the authors also address how stigma translates from a social condition to various biological conditions. The authors’ contributions cover a variety of topics, including HIV, substance use, obesity, depression, homelessness, poverty,and political oppression. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and public health.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: The Role of Drug User Stigmatization in the Making of Drug-Related Syndemics Chapter 2: Perception and Discrimination: The Biomedical Foundations of a Syndemic of Substance Abuse, Violence and Suicide Among Aboriginal People in Ontario, Canada Chapter 3: Disordered Minds and Disordered Bodies: Stigma, Depression, & Obesity Syndemic in Puerto Rico Chapter 4: Obesity, Depression, and Weight-Related Stigma Syndemics Chapter 5: The PHAMILIS Stigma Syndemic among Homeless Women Chapter 6: Dangerous Bodies, Unpredictable Minds: HIV/AIDS, Mental Disorders, and Stigma Syndemics in Western Kenya Chapter 7: Biomedical Moralities: HIV Community Stigma and Risks for HIV/STI Syndemics Chapter 8: Methamphetamine Addiction, HIV infection, and Gay Men: Stigma and Suffering

About the Author :
Shir Lerman is postdoctoral fellow in Prevention and Control of Cancer Training in Implementation Science (PRACCTIS) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Bayla Ostrach is appointed in the Department of Family Medicine and affiliated with the Master's of Science in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice program (MACCP) at Boston University School of Medicine. Merrill Singer is professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Community Medicine at the University of Connecticut and senior research scientist at the University of Connecticut’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP).

Review :
In content this volume is clear and thematically coherent.... [T] he authors are to be congratulated on their international perspective.... This volume makes a persuasive case for the expansion of research into this area. This book would be of particular interest to those familiar with the theoretical traditions on which it is founded. With its substantial theoretical content, this text would be most useful to scholars and postgraduate students who are interested in research that focuses on the intersections of contemporary social theory, health and illness and medical sociology. I eagerly await the next instalment in this volume. In Foundations of Biosocial Health the role of stigma as a powerful and enduring social-structural factor in health is highlighted and underscored. Through eloquent case studies on substance abuse, obesity, and HIV/AIDS, the authors discuss how the psychological and emotional scarring of stigmatization can result on poor physical and mental health, and that health is ultimately best understood by using a framework that examines the interactions between human biology and the social environment. Given that recent research is showing the linkage between racism (and discrimination) and adverse health, this book is timely and highly informative.