Journal
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY
Volume 30, Issue 4, Pages 462-478Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/maq.12215
Keywords
comorbidity; syndemics; depression; Type 2 diabetes; social inequality
Funding
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center
- Northwestern University
- South African Medical Research Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This article examines the comorbidity concept in medical anthropology. I argue that the dearth of articles on comorbidity in medical anthropology may result from the rise of syndemic theory. Syndemics recognize how social realities shape individual illness experiences as well as distribution of diseases across populations. I discuss synergistic interactions foundational to the syndemics construct through my research of depression and diabetes comorbidity in vulnerable populations from urban United States, India, and South Africa. I argue that social and economic factors that cluster with depression and diabetes alone and together exemplify the biosocial processes that are at the heart of syndemics. In doing so, I illustrate how social, cultural, and economic factors shape individual-level experiences of co-occurring diseases despite similar population-level trends. Finally, I discuss the relevance of syndemics for the fields of medicine and public health while cautioning what must not be lost in translation across disciplines.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available