The post

The post New Article in Press first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

In defense of my work, I’ll just quote verbatim the first paragraph that justifies my research from my job app cover letters: The central question that motivates my research is why chronic stress tracks along the fault lines of social inequity among rapidly globalizing populations. This question is important because stress-related diseases have the highest global disease burden today and this burden is disproportionately borne by the poor and socially marginalized. My pre-dissertation and dissertation fieldwork, funded by two NSF grants, make a unique contribution to medical anthropology and population health research by investigating the role of culture as a stress buffer among a group of Amazonian foraging-farmers who seem to defy the usual connection between globalization, inequality and psychosocial stress—the Tsimane’ of lowland Bolivia. The Tsimane’ present a puzzle because despite two decades of rapid culture change and market integration they have some of the world’s lowest average levels of short-term stress biomarker measures and related adverse health outcomes. My dissertation attempts to solve this puzzle using long-term ethnography and a sociocultural epidemiologic survey to advance our understanding of the links between culture and the stress process.

Stay tuned for updates on the pending NSF response to the opinion piece.

UPDATE (10/2/2013): Not one to let a little momentum go to waste, I am planning to respond in an Op-Ed piece of my own (and it may be co-written).  Along with that, I have a crowd-funding launch in the works on Rockethub.com to enable analyses of retrospective stress biomarkers collected during my NSF research project. I hope those who see the value in my research might consider supporting it tangibly as well.

The post The Value of Medical Anthropology first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

Presented at the AAAs Annual Meeting in San Francisco on November 17, 2012 by Alan F. Schultz and Clarence C. Gravlee, University of Florida, Department of Anthropology.  Click the image for a larger version.

The post American Anthropological Association 2012 Annual Meeting Poster first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

Also check out the papers mentioned by Darcia Narvaez from Notre Dame.

The post The Stress-Disease Connection with Dr. Gabor Maté first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

Thursday, November 18th I presented a poster on the sociocentric network analysis of market alters in a Tsimane’ village based on data I collected summer 2010 among the Tsimane’ in the Bolivian Amazon. Click the image for a larger version.

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The post Now Accepting Applications first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

I began by quickly narrowing my options down to two companies–though, I did later find a third viable option, which I’ve included as a footnote below. I was able to do this after talking with several colleagues (who have tried these in Africa, South America, and the American Northwest, among other places) I was dissuaded from going with a ceramic or other hand pump. The biggest drawback to traditional pumps seems to be that they clog too easily and most don’t filter out viruses. Also, they can be a pain to use, since you have to pump while one hose dangles in a river and another sits precariously in a bottle or bucket. Hence, contamination is an issue. The two products/brands I settled on are both purification bottles but they have significantly different initial prices–and significantly different costs/L and flow rates. These include three Katadyn bottles (i.e. the Water Microfilter, Exstream and the new Mybottle) and the Lifesaver Bottle. The Katadyn’s are $35-$50 on Amazon and the Lifesaver is $150 (or $180 for the 6,000 L model).

Katadyn Bottles vs. Lifesaver Bottle

The biggest differences between these are their flow rates, the total volume each can handle per filter, chemical use (or lack thereof), cost/L and dirty filter failsafe. Flow rate matters quite a bit because depending on the turbidity of the water you want to have some excess so that when the filters have been used for a while (or haven’t been flushed for awhile) the filter will still work at a tolerable rate. The Katadyn bottles have initial flow rates of 0.2-0.3 L/min while the Lifesaver is 2.5 L/min. Some of this difference is because you can re-pressurize (i.e. pump-a-little) to increase flow rate when the Lifesaver slows down. To put that into perspective, if you didn’t have to refill, the Katadyn would take 475 min to filter its total 95L volume while the Lifesaver would take just 38 min to filter that same 95L (assuming low turbidity, of course).

Each Katadyn filter can clean 25 gallons or ~95 L (replacement filters are $20 and depending on the models other replacement pieces may be needed). The Lifesaver base model filter cleans 4,000 L (6,000 L for the next step up) and the 4,000 model cartridges cost $99. Iodine is usually fine for most folks but Katadyn says “Persons with iodine allergies, thyroid problems and pregnant women should consult a doctor before using the bottle.” Research indicates that long-term Iodine water purification can lead to thyroid and other problems (see: Backer & Hollowell 2000).  Katadyn uses iodine because the filters range from .3-1.0 microns (the Lifesaver filter is .015 microns and the largest water borne virus is about .025 microns). Lifesaver does not use iodine.

The cost/L for the Katadyn at $35/95L is $0.37 while the base Lifesaver at $150/4,000L is $0.0375 or at $180/6,000L is $0.03. The Lifesaver bottle stops working at the end of filter life while  Katadyn will keep working and if you’re not paying close attention this is bad because the bottle-cap counter simply restarts the count.   There are two to three parts to change on the Katadyn depending on the model while there are two for the Lifesaver.  Finally, you’re supposed to only use the Katadyn in an upright position–it doesn’t work if upside down or angled towards, say, your mouth.

Conclusion

I went with the Lifesaver bottle because my water source this summer is highly turbid with lots of silt and sand.  That made a flow rate 12.5 times higher than the Katadyn bottles seem very appealing.

Footnote:

Also, check out the Lifestraw (not yet for sale commercially in the U.S.) and the AquaSafeStraw+ and AquaSafeBottle+ (Straw: $70, no chemicals, 1,000L @ $0.07/L, 0.02 micron filter, 0.4L/min, and failsafe; Bottle: $?, Same).

The post Water Purification first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

A couple of years after completing a Cal-EIS fellowship at the Office of AIDS in California, I was happy to recently learn that some research I was involved with to match HIV/AIDS and TB registry data will soon be published in Health Informatics Journal. See more on my publications page.

The post New Article in Press first appeared on Alan F. Schultz, PhD, MPH.

Thanks!

-Alan

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