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

明尼苏达大学的研究生托马斯沃尔顿，在博士的指导下卡伦何，将进行人类学研究的经济，社会和政治背景的转变精神科实践在莫尔兹比港，新几内亚。他将调查公共卫生，精神病学逻辑，自我和精神疾病的日常经验的政治之间的关系。疾病类别影响认知;新几内亚的案例使研究者能够在新的动态情况下研究这些过程，同时它们正在发展。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，特别是那些与压力有关的类别，以与其他更好地了解的医疗需求（如治疗传染病）竞争资源。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心理健康康复中心进行研究。他将采用社会科学研究方法的组合，包括：长期参与观察，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了解发展中国家医疗资源的限制如何影响那些不太明显的疾病形式，有时只有通过微观层面的社会科学研究和分析才能看到。 该项目是及时的，因为它也有助于讨论当代全球卫生倡议是否足以解决中低收入国家的精神疾病流行问题。资助这个奖项也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.