Inequality, Health Disparities, & Obesity

An October poll of 1,000 likely voters found that Americans are increasingly concerned about income inequality. When asked: “How Big a Problem is Income Inequality in the US?,” the majority (74%) replied that it was either a big problem or somewhat of a problem. Predictably, there were differences in opinion by political ideology, but a [...]

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Demography and the Possible

Living in New England, we have older cemeteries than most other areas of the country (though Eastern hemisphere readers might scoff at what Americans consider ‘old’). I frequently walk with my sons and nephew through a cemetery near my home, as it is a tranquil place away from traffic, where we can go through the [...]

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One Planet. One Species. Homo sapiens.

“One planet, one experiment.” ………………..— Edward O. Wilson. 1992. The Diversity of Life. … The BBC has compiled what looks to be an absolutely visually stunning television series, titled ‘Human Planet.’  The footage is said to contain video from 80 different locations, highlighting the relationship of humans to various ecological conditions.1 The description from the website: [...]

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Killer Ghosts & Broken Hearts: The Mystery of Sudden Unexplained Death in Sleep in Asian Men

One of the strengths of a biocultural perspective in anthropology is its broad approach to understanding human biology and health (Wiley and Allen 2008). Such a framework seems particularly appropriate when looking at the fascinating phenomenon of SUDS (Sudden Unexplained Death During Sleep). Though SUDS first appeared in the medical literature 1917 in the Philippines, [...]

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A Human Biology of War: The Proximate and the Ultimate

… On the surface, it may not be so clear where war, health, and evolution intersect. From the perspective of biological anthropology, many have called for a holistic, transdisciplinary approach to human biology and health which considers the environment as the totality of its evolutionary, ecological, and social components, including social inequality (Little and Haas [...]

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Refugees and Health

A recent book, “War and the Health of Nations“,  by Zaryab Iqbal (Political Science, Penn State) takes a look at the associations between national health statistics and the presence and duration of war. … Chapter 8 explores the topic of forced migration and population health, though with a novel approach. Instead of exploring the ways [...]

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Shrinking babies

Harvard researchers are reporting in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology that the average birth weight in the U.S. has actually dropped over the past 15 years. The study looked at more than 36 million full-term births between 1990 and 2005. After controlling for confounding variables, it was found that birth weight had decreased by 52 [...]

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