Applying Syndemics and Chronicity: Interpretations from Studies of Poverty, Depression, and Diabetes

Abstract

Medical anthropologists working with global health agendas must develop transdisciplinary frameworks to communicate their work. This article explores two similar but underutilized theoretical frameworks in medical anthropology, and discusses how they facilitate new insights about the relationships between epidemiological patterns and individual-level illness experiences. Two cases from our fieldwork in New Delhi and Chicago are presented to illustrate how syndemics and chronicity theories explain the epidemic problems of co-occurring depression and type 2 diabetes. We use these case studies to illustrate how the holistic agendas of syndemics and chronicity theories allow critical scholars to attend to the macrosocial factors contributing to the rise of noncommunicable diseases while still honoring the diversity of experiences that make individual illness experiences, and actual outcomes, unique. Such an approach not only promotes a more integrative medical anthropology, but also contributes to global health dialogues around diabetes, depression, and their overlap.

Keywords:

• chronic illness
• chronicity
• health inequality
• syndemics
• urban health

Notes

One symptom of uncontrolled type 2 diabetes is extreme weight loss; Sita reports being “fat” before she was diagnosed. Furthermore, South Asians often develop diabetes and other diet-related chronic diseases at lower body mass indices than Euro-American populations do (World Health Organization Expert Consultation 2004).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lesley Jo Weaver

LESLEY JO WEAVER, PhD, MPH, is currently completing a postdoctoral year of research and teaching in the Department of Anthropology at Emory University. Her work is biocultural in approach and centers broadly on the intersections between chronic illnesses and mental health in developing countries. In addition to the New Delhi-based research discussed in this article, Weaver is currently conducting pilot work for a study exploring chronic diseases, food insecurity, and mental health in rural Brazil.

Emily Mendenhall

EMILY MENDENHALL, PhD, MPH, has conducted research on social suffering and the syndemics of depression and diabetes among the urban poor in the United States, India, and South Africa. Her work in Chicago culminated in her recent book, Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrants (2012). Other studies have been conducted as a National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar in New Delhi and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is Assistant Professor at Georgetown University's program in Science, Technology, and International Affairs, Walsh School of Foreign Service.