Clarence C. Gravlee

Today I’m happy to announce an opening for a postdoctoral position in medical anthropology at the University of Florida. The full text of the ad is below; you can also download the official version as a PDF. Please share this announcement widely and let me know if you have any questions about the position.

The University of Florida Department of Anthropology invites applications for a Postdoctoral Associate in Medical Anthropology. The Postdoctoral Associate will be mentored by Dr. Clarence (Lance) Gravlee. The starting date of the position is negotiable but could begin immediately. Ph.D. is required at the time of appointment. Priority will be given to candidates with the PhD in anthropology, but candidates with training in allied disciplines (e.g., social epidemiology, public health, sociology) are eligible to apply.

The successful candidate will contribute to ongoing, interdisciplinary research on social inequalities in health and have opportunities to develop skills in project management, publication, and grant-writing. The Associate will work with Dr. Gravlee and colleagues on one of two projects affiliated with the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee (HEAT). These projects focus on racial inequalities in cardiovascular disease, the food environment, and childhood obesity. Preferred interests include biocultural approaches to health and human development; community-based participatory research; race and racism; multilevel and spatial analysis; cultural dimensions of stress; and anthropology of food and nutrition. Skills in qualitative and quantitative research methods are a must.

The Associate will also have the opportunity to interact with colleagues and students in medical anthropology at the University of Florida. The medical anthropology community at UF is vibrant and growing, with many opportunities to support the continued professional development of the Postdoctoral Associate.

The position is expected to be one to two years. Salary is commensurate with experience. Please send an application letter, CV, and contact information for three references to Dr. Gravlee at cgravlee@ufl.edu. If necessary, paper applications should be sent to Dr. Clarence C. Gravlee, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, PO Box 117305, Gainesville, FL 32611-7305. Application materials will be reviewed immediately and continue until the position is filled. The University of Florida is an equal opportunity institution dedicated to building a broadly diverse and inclusive faculty and staff. Minorities, women and those from other underserved groups are encouraged to apply.

Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s weekly magazine, Chronicle Review, featured an article about research by my collaborators and me on racial inequalities in health, with a focus on hypertension in the African Diaspora. I’m grateful to the author, Josh Fischman, for his thoughtful portrait of the work — and especially for incorporating the voices of some key community partners in my current projects in Tallahassee.

The article is available on the Chronicle’s website. Questions or comments? Leave them at the Chronicle or post them here.

This week Doug Monroe has selected an article we can really, er, sink our teeth into:

Paugh, A., & Izquierdo, C. (2009). Why is This a Battle Every Night?: Negotiating Food and Eating in American Dinnertime Interaction. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 19(2), 185-204.

Join us on Friday, 10:40 – 11:30 a.m. in the Med Anthro Lab (TUR B103).

There’s growing interest–excitement, even–about the possible role of epigenetics to clarify how experience becomes embodied in biological functioning. This week’s readings, selected by Nikki D’Errico, share some of the enthusiasm and a healthy dose of skepticism:

Champagne, F. (2010). Epigenetic Influence of Social Experiences across the Lifespan. Dev Psychobiol, 52(4), 299-311.

Miller, G. (2010). Epigenetics. The Seductive Allure of Behavioral Epigenetics. Science, 329(5987), 24-27.

Also relevant is an article in this week’s issue of Nature that reviews some of the criticism and limitations of epigenetics. The Nature piece features work by Frances Champagne, author of the lead article in journal club this week.

Join us in The Lab (TUR B103) on Friday, 10:40 – 11:30 a.m. to be part of the discussion.

This week we kick off a new academic year of journal club in medical anthropology and population health with a recent paper from Social Science and Medicine:

Coreil, J., Mayard, G., Simpson, K., Lauzardo, M., Zhu, Y., & Weiss, M. G. (2010). Structural forces and the production of TB-related stigma among Haitians in two contexts. Social Science & Medicine.

We’ll meet on Friday, September 3, 10:40 – 11:30 a.m. in the Medical Anthropology Lab, Turlington B103. See you there!

The beauty of medical anthropology, if you ask me, is that we could go from last week’s article about aldosterone and physiological responses to stress to this week’s discussion about the following article:

Whyte, S. R. (2009). Health identities and subjectivities: The ethnographic challenge. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 23(1), 6-15.

Noelle Sullivan will lead our discussion beginning at 12:50 on Friday in Grinter 376 (Latin American Studies Conference Room). Please join us.

After a three-week hiatus, journal club returns this week with an article presented by Amy Non:

Kubzansky, L. D., & Adler, G. K. (2010). Aldosterone: a forgotten mediator of the relationship between psychological stress and heart disease. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 34(1), 80-86.

Join us on Friday at 12:50 – 1:40 p.m. in Grinter 376 (Latin American Studies).

This week the Society for Applied Anthropology will hold it annual meeting in Mérida, México. University of Florida anthropologists usually have a strong presence at these meetings, and this year is no exception. Allan Burns, Chair of our Department, is the current President of SfAA, and UF alumnus Francisco Fernandez, now Associate Rector at Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, is one of the program chairs.

Here are the papers I know about by current faculty and students affiliated with medical anthropology at UF. There are, of course, many more papers by UF anthropologists working on other topics, especially ecology and development. If I’ve overlooked any UF medical anthropologists, please leave a comment to let me know. The papers are listed in chronological order, with session numbers in parentheses.

MARTEN, Meredith (U Florida) Health Care Sustainability and Civil Society in Sub-Saharan Africa. (W-66)

RAHIM-WILLIAMS, Bridgett (U Florida) and SAMARAWICKREMA, Indira. An Exploratory Study of Type 2 Diabetes among African American Women in the U.S. and Women in Sri Lanka (W-70)

SCHULTZ, Alan (U Florida) Happiness, Trust and Reciprocity in a Highly Self-Sufficient Society (TH-33)

BOLIN, Anne (Elon U), WHELEHAN, Patricia (SUNY-Potsdam), BOLTON, Ralph (Pomona Coll, Chijnaya Fdn), GRAVLEE, Clarence C. (U Florida), and FELDMAN, Douglas A. (SUNY-Brockport) Issues in Teaching Human Sexuality: Sexual Orientations (TH-69)

GRAVLEE, Clarence C. (U Florida) Race, Racism, and the Neurobiology of Stress: Implications for Ethnography (TH-98)

HOPKINS, Allison (U Florida) Globalization and Medicinal Plant Remedy Knowledge Acquisition and Variation in Tabi, Yucatan, Mexico (TH-125)

D’ERRICO, Nicole C. (U Florida) Born in Violence: The Consequences of Sexually Violent Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (TH-127)

DOLWICK GRIEB, Suzanne (U Florida) Strained Communication: HIV Stigma in a Migrant Community (F-11)

STAGGS, Kristin (Duval Cty Hlth Dept) and WINTERBAUER, Nancy (U Florida, Duval Cty Hlth Dept) The Integration and Application of Identity Theory with the Behavioral Health Stages of Change Model (F-35)

RAHIM-WILLIAMS, Bridgett (U Florida) The Self as Subject: Interpreting Diabetes Self-management (F-35)

MONROE, Douglas A., GRAVLEE, Clarence C., and MCCARTY, Christopher (U Florida) Ethnography and Measurement in Public Health Research: Everyday Racism among African Americans (F-35)

RANHORN, Kathryn (U Florida) Homelessness in Gainesville: An Ethnography of Illness, Social Network, and Criminalization (F-93)

TOVAR, Jose A. (U Florida) Lucha de Titanes: Interactions with Collaborative Research Intervention Projects (S-9)

MCCARTY, Christopher, MONROE, Douglas, and GRAVLEE, Clarence (U Florida) Personal Social Networks and the Experience of Racism among African Americans: Implications for Health Disparities (S-37)

For a complete listing or more detail, see the Preliminary Program (PDF) at the SfAA website. ¡Nos vemos en Mérida!

This week we’re delighted to be joined by Peter Collings’s colleague, Fredrik Lindencrona, from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. We will take advantage of this opportunity to discuss a paper related to Dr. Lindencrona’s expertise:

Sellstrom, E., & Bremberg, S. (2006). The significance of neighbourhood context to child and adolescent health and well-being: A systematic review of multilevel studies. Scandanavian Journal of Public Health, 34(5), 544-554.

Please join us for the discussion in Grinter 376 (Latin American Studies Conference Room) on Friday, 12:50 – 1:40 p.m.

Today I’ll be giving an online presentation as part of an EPA-sponsored webinar (where did that word come from?) on “The Use of Race in Environmental Health Research: What Does/Could It Mean?” The event is a precursor to a symposium EPA will host in two weeks, “Strengthening Environmental Justice Research and Decision Making: A Symposium on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts.” I’m very happy to join Gilbert Gee and Charmaine Royal on the panel.

The event is being recorded, and my understanding is that the audio and slide presentations will be posted online soon. When that happens, I’ll update this post with the link.