Search

COVID-19 Rapid Student Interview Project

COVID-19 Rapid Student Interview Collection Form

This project aims to provide an engaging project for post-secondary students (undergraduate and graduate) to gain experience with qualitative research methodology  while contributing to public

Luísa Reis-Castro: mosquitoes, race, and class

LuisaReisCastro
Annotation of
In response to

As a researcher, I’m interested in the political, ecological, and cultural debates around mosquito-borne diseases and the solutions proposed to mitigate them.

When we received the task, my first impulse was to investigate about the contemporary effects of anthropogenic climate change in mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans. But I was afraid to make the same mistake that I did in my PhD research. I wrote my PhD proposal while based in the US, more specifically in New England, during the Zika epidemic, and proposed to understand how scientists were studying ecological climate change and mosquitoes in Brazil. However, once I arrived in the country the political climate was a much more pressing issue, with the dismantling of health and scientific institutions.

Thus, after our meeting yesterday, and Jason Ludwig’s reminder that the theme of our Field Campus is the plantation, I decided to focus on how it related to mosquitoes in New Orleans.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito and the yellow fever virus it can transmit are imbricated in the violent histories of settler-colonialism and slavery that define the plantation economy. The mosquito and the virus arrived in the Americas in the same ships that brought enslaved peoples from Africa. The city of New Orleans had its first yellow fever epidemic in 1796, with frequent epidemics happening between 1817 and 1905. What caused New Orleans to be the “City of the Dead,” as Kristin Gupta has indicated, was yellow fever. However, as historian Urmi Engineer Willoughby points out, the slave trade cannot explain alone the spread and persistance of the disease in the region: "Alterations to the landscape, combined with demographic changes resulting from the rise of sugar production, slavery, and urban growth all contributed to the region’s development as a yellow fever zone." For example, sugar cultivation created ideal conditions for mosquito proliferation because of the extensive landscape alteration and ecological instabilities, including heavy deforestation and the construction of drainage ditches and canals.

Historian Kathryn Olivarius examines how for whites "acclimatization" to the disease played a role in hierarchies with “acclimated” (immune) people at the top and a great mass of “unacclimated” (non-immune) people and how for black enslaved people "who were embodied capital, immunity enhanced the value and safety of that capital for their white owners, strengthening the set of racialized assumptions about the black body bolstering racial slavery."

As I continue to think through these topics, I wonder how both the historical materialities of the plantation and the contemporary anthropogenic changes might be influencing mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans nowadays? And more, how the regions’ histories of race and class might still be shaping the effects of these diseases and how debates about them are framed?

pece_annotation_1473634173

a_chen
Annotation of
In response to

After finished the program, the students will be award with diploma that is recognized by Haiti government and most of the international rehabilitation organizations. And Handicap International is working with Ministry for Health and Population to let this program gaining more recognitions.

pece_annotation_1474297551

a_chen

pece_annotation_1475441656

a_chen
Annotation of
In response to

The final edited version has published via Annual Reviews of Public Health.

“The Annual Review of Public Health, in publication since 1980, covers significant developments in the field of Public Health, including key developments in epidemiology and biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, issues related to social environment and behavior, health services, and public health practice.” [http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/publhealth]

The journal can help the health professionals by exploring not only contents in the sub-sections of Public Health but further more explore other detailed topics with other journal sections such as Medicine, Nutrition etc.

“The mission of Annual Reviews is to provide systematic, periodic examinations of scholarly advances in a number of fields of science through critical authoritative reviews. The comprehensive critical review not only summarizes a topic but also roots out errors of fact or concept and provokes discussion that will lead to new research activity. The critical review is an essential part of the scientific method.” [http://www.annualreviews.org/page/about/our-mission-and-our-founder]

pece_annotation_1475441968

a_chen
Annotation of
In response to
  1. With the lack of medical centers, there is a lot of cost to invest into the help to these countries. But the main reason is the occurrence of war and instable activities.

“In 2015, MSF provided humanitarian assistance in 69 countries.

Around 54 per cent of activities were carried out in settings of instability. Some 57 per cent of programs were in Africa…MSF spent 1,283 million euros: 82 per cent was spent on humanitarian activities…” [http://www.msf.org/en/article/msf-international-activity-report-2015]

2. There is an urgently need of HIV/TB doctors in the field. [http://www.msf.org/en/work-msf/working-in-the-field]

“MSF provided care for 333,900 people living with HIV/AIDS and antiretroviral treatment for 240,100 people in 2015.” With the lack of appropriate medical educations, many people do not know they have infected with HIV. [MSF international_activity_report_2015_en_2nd_ed.pdf]

3. Close of Programs

“When a violent situation has stabilized sufficiently, and access to health services improves, MSF will close its program.”

“When local or national authorities and organizations have the capacity and motivation to restore and develop a medical system that meets the urgent needs of the population, MSF will withdraw.”

“MSF will close a program when a medical emergency ends.”

[http://www.msf.org/en/msf-activities]

pece_annotation_1473037882

a_chen
Annotation of
In response to

The report is provided with both English and Japanese for the technical professionals to study.  For the general publics, this report summary (fact sheet) has provided in six major languages  to assist them to gained a broad understanding to the works.