W5: Activity Post

In my research about leprosy in China, I would like to use epidemiology and anthropology perspective in Lecture 1 to analyze research. I plan to use the research from Lancet Infectious Diseases (Lun et al, 2012) as a data base to address. In the definition of epidemiology and anthropology, epidemiology defines as disease-oriented and anthropology defines as “illness” which includes both cultural meaning and personal experiences (Inhorn, 1995). Inhorn’s article published in 1995 and anthropological-epidemiological research is very rare at that time. 

China is the largest population in earth and leprosy used to be one of the serious infectious diseases before the 1950s (Lun et al, 2012). In the epidemiology, the patients in China successfully cured and diagnosed 500000 cases and there are only 0.12 per 100000 in 2009 got leprosy (Lun et al, 2012). Relevant research reports about leprosy have also made a model for other countries and provide important references in public health system. We can see that leprosy is a contagious disease under the definition of epidemiology and this systematic analysis. Through several public health approach, a population can be cured or recovered. 

In the anthropology, Chinese people in the 50s did not have a deep understanding of epidemiology, and most of the hard-hit areas spread by leprosy were rural areas where medical facilities were not complete and lacked medical staffs. Therefore, many people in the early stage have died because of they missed the significant time for treatment. In Kleinman’s article (Kleinman et al, 2010), it discussed that the influences from religion effects the local people to see the conception of leprosy. “As portrayed in Buddhist and Daoist texts, and follows the rise of Confucianism into the late imperial period, in which the ‘dangerously contagious body’ that would inform and sustain public health intervention.” In some village, the villagers blocked all infected patients into a closed area, including those who have just been infected and those who are already seriously ill. In Leung’s explanation (Kleinman et al, 2010), she found that people think that a woman who is sick is a person who destroys the purity of women and they also believe a woman inflected a man can “selling it off” her disease. 

In the China, the interdisciplinary anthropological-epidemiological research also developed slowly in the leprosy at first, but there are people work on it. Most Chinese people don’t understand the real mechanism of how leprosy infected, however, they imagine leprosy as a terrible disease through the misinformation from public. Under the guidance of doctors and nurses, they began to know that leprosy patients were not contagious in the middle of treatment (because the control of drugs). Nowadays, leprosy has become a past history. This history gives many examples about anthropological-epidemiological research. 

  1. Lun. Z, Zhu. X, & Yang. T (2012). Leprosy in china. Lancet Infectious Diseases. https://www-clinicalkey-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/#!/content/playContent/1-s2.0-S147330991170336X
  2. Kleinman, A., & Ryan, G. (2010). Between history and anthropology: Stigma, the subaltern and leprosy in china: An essay review of leprosy in china: A history, by angela ki che leung. new york: Columbia university press, 2009.Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 34(3), 548-552. doi:10.1007/s11013-010-9180-0
  3. Inhorn. M (1995). Medical anthropology and epidemiology divergences or convergences. Elsevier Science Ltd, 40(3), 285-290
https://www-clinicalkey-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/#!/content/playContent/1-s2.0-S147330991170336X

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