Can We Do Anything About Health Disparities in America?

Keynote Address Can We Do Anything About Health Disparities in America? S. Leonard Syme, Ph.D., has been a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1968. His major research interest has been psychosocial risk factors such as job stress, social support and poverty. In doing this research, he has studied San Francisco bus drivers; Japanese living in Japan, Hawaii and California; British civil servants; and people living in Alameda County, California. Dr. Syme has written two books and over 150 published papers, and has been a visiting professor at universities in England and Japan. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and has received several honors related to his teaching and research, among them, the Lilienfeld Award for Excellence in Teaching, the J.D. Bruce Award for Distinguished Contributions in Preventive Medicine from the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the University of California Distinguished Emeritus Professor Award

The Battle of Worldviews: A Case Study of Liver Fluke Infection in Khon Kaen, Thailand

Control efforts to reduce infection from the parasitic flatworm Opisthorchis viverrini have progressed through understanding the epidemiology of Opisthorchis viverrini , antiparasitic drug developments, technological innovations, health education promoting cooking of fish, and improved hygienic defecation. Yet the problem persists. The case study method was used to examine the fundamental cause of the liver fluke infection problem. Evidence shows that the liver fluke–infected population does not care about living a long life. For them, suffering and death are simply a part of life, and expected. Thus, the cause(s) leading to death is not important. They believe morally bad actions, and predetermined fate associated with kamma in Buddhism, play a big role whether or not one is infected with the liver fluke. Health interventions may be made more effective if they take into account the liver fluke–infected population’s worldviews about ethics, morality, life, and death. We researchers should not feel concerned only about medically determined causes of death