Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Sociocultural Effects of Psychiatric Practice in New Guinea

明尼苏达大学的研究生Thomas Walton将在Karen Ho博士的指导下，对新几内亚莫尔兹比港不断变化的精神病学实践的经济、社会和政治背景进行人类学研究。他将研究公共卫生政治、精神病学逻辑以及自我和精神疾病的日常经历之间的关系。众所周知，疾病类别会影响知觉；新几内亚的案例使研究人员能够在新的和动态的情况下研究这些过程。新几内亚的初步研究发现，精神科医生经常重新制定诊断类别，特别是与压力有关的诊断类别，以与其他更为人所知的医疗需求竞争资源，如治疗传染病。研究人员将调查这些努力对城市穷人的多重影响。他将在莫尔兹比港的两家医院和一家精神健康康复中心进行这项研究。他将采用社会科学研究方法的组合，包括：长期参与者观察，半结构化和非结构化访谈，以及收集疾病叙述。这项研究将有助于更好地理解发展中国家卫生保健资源的限制如何影响那些不太明显的疾病形式的人，有时影响的方式只有通过微观的社会科学研究和分析才能看到。该项目是及时的，因为它还有助于讨论当代全球卫生倡议是否充分解决了低收入和中等收入国家的精神疾病流行问题。资助这一奖项还支持社会科学家的教育。

University of Minnesota graduate student Thomas Walton, under the guidance of Dr. Karen Ho, will conduct anthropological research on the economic, social, and political contexts of shifting psychiatric practice in Port Moresby, New Guinea. He will investigate the relationship between the politics of public health, psychiatric logic, and everyday experiences of self and mental illness. Disease categories are known to affect perception; the case of New Guinea allows a researcher to investigate these processes in new and dynamic situation while they are developing.Preliminary research in New Guinea found that psychiatric practitioners often reformulate diagnostic categories, particularly those related to stress, to compete for resources with other, better known, medical needs such as the treatment of communicable diseases. The researcher will investigate the multiple effects of these efforts on the urban poor. He will carry out the research at two hospitals and a mental health rehabilitation center in Port Moresby. He will employ a combination of social science research methods, including: long-term participant observation, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, and the collection illness narratives. This research will contribute to better understanding of how limitations on healthcare resources in the developing world impact those with less visible forms of disease, sometimes in ways that only become visible through micro-level social science research and analysis. The project is timely because it also can contribute to discussions about whether or not contemporary global health initiatives adequately address mental illness prevalence in low and middle-income countries. Funding this award also supports the education of a social scientist.