Health, Risk and Adversity

Research on health involves evaluating the disparities that are systematically associated with the experience of risk, including genetic and physiological variation, environmental exposure to poor nutrition and disease, and social marginalization. This volume provides a unique perspective-a comparative approach to the analysis of health disparities and human adaptability-and specifically focuses on the pathways that lead to unequal health outcomes. From an explicitly anthropological perspective situated in the practice and theory of biosocial studies, this book combines theoretical rigor with more applied and practice-oriented approaches and critically examines infectious and chronic diseases, reproduction, and nutrition.

Catherine Panter-Brick is Professor of Anthropology at Durham University, UK. Her research focuses on critical risks to health across key stages of human development. She has edited several books to bridge research findings into teaching practice, such as Biosocial Perspectives on Children (1999), Hormones, Health, and Behavior (1999), Abandoned Children (2000), and Hunter-Gatherers (2001).

Agustin Fuentes is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, US. His research interests focus on primate and human behavior, pathogen transmission, and patterns in human and primate evolution. He has co-edited three books, The Non-Human Primates (1999), Primates Face to Face (2002), Primates in Perspective (2006) and recently completed a textbook in biological anthropology, Core Concepts in Biological Anthropology (2006).