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Title:
Beer, bartering, and babies: Food systems,
community, and pregnancy in rural Tibet.
Where
& When: April 07, 2009
341 Eggers Hall
12.30 pm
Type
of Activity: Speaker
Speaking: Tim
Dye, Professor
of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Microbiology
and Immunology, and Medicine,
SUNY Upstate Medical University.
Summary:
Micronutrient deficiency is a leading underlying cause of
death and disease worldwide, particularly in the Tibetan
Autonomous Region, where maternal and child death rates are
among the highest in the world. This presentation reports on
an ongoing mixed-method, anthropological-epidemiological
project aimed to better understand and improve
micronutrition in pregnancy in a rural county of Tibet. The
project has explored a variety of food-related beliefs,
social, environmental, and economic influences on food
availability and preferences, and food consumption and
practice among pregnant women in their communities. By
integrating methods from anthropology, epidemiology, and
food chemistry, the project has created one of the most
comprehensive assessments of a food system in Tibet, and
subsequently generates several interesting dilemmas and
challenges for public health programs.
Sponsorship:
The South Asia Center;
