Anthropology – Place and Health Assignment

Description

A primary focus of this course is to provide understanding of mortality and morbidity . Evidence point to variations in p lace characteristics as important for understanding patterns of mortality and morbidity among populations. In this assignment you are required to apply your knowledge of the concept of place (see Lecture 3) to understand the prevalence or spread of COVID – 19 in different geograph ical contexts. A core objective of the assignment is to assess your understanding of how aspects of the definition of place ( see Week 3) are practically employed to explain disease patterns. To complete the assignment, use Kuuire and Dassah (2020), as a guide to address the respective questions for each of the three papers assigned. For each of the assigned papers (listed below and available on Quercus ), use essay format to address the followi ng questions: • Introduction : What did the study measure? – briefly describe the specific health outcome being measured by the study. • Method employed: Did the study use a specific type of spatial technique (i.e. place – relevant analysis technique). • Accounting for the role of place : • Does the paper focus on place as a container of physical resources or place as constituting social relations and more? Explain how. • In what ways did the study account for the role of “place” in their analysis? • How do you think the vertical linkages (based on your understanding of the relational perspective of “place”) could be incorporated in this study? • For each study, what other aspects of “place” could be incorporated in this study? • Conclusion : • How did the study describe the contribution of place in understanding the health outcome measured? • From a qualitative perspective indicate a weakness of the study and indicat e how qualitative methods may have provided useful insights NB: The suggested format above should be used for each of the assigned papers separately. Y ou must limit your assignment to no more than 3 000 words (double – spaced and typed). Readings: Cordes, J., & Castro, M. C. (2020). Spatial analysis of COVID – 19 clusters and contextual factors in New York City. Spatial and Spatio – temporal Epidemiology , 34 , 100355. Kuebart, A., & Stabler, M. (2020). Infectious diseases as socio ‐ spatial processes: The Covid ‐ 19 outbreak in Germany. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie , 111 (3), 482 – 496. Sun, F., Matthews, S. A., Yang, T. C., & Hu, M. H. (2020). A spatial analysis of the COVID – 19 period prevalence in US counties through June 28, 2020: where geography matters?. Annals of epidemiology .