Climate Change and Vector-Borne Disease 

Medical anthropology brings a unique perspective in that it looks at health in a holistic sense, taking account of the social, economic and political context it occurs within. Often, people’s personal stories of coping with an illness are used as gateways into understanding the particular medical phenomenon. This also shows us how medical conditions may be refracted through different cultural/ethnomedical lenses, depending on who it is that is affected.

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Arguably the most intriguing anthropological idea to do with this topic comes from Singer and Bulled (2016), who conceptualize ‘ectoparasitic syndemics’. ‘Syndemic’ stands for ‘synergistic epidemic’ – it refers to when diseases and social problems interact with each other to become simultaneous and mutually reinforcing. In this case, vector-borne diseases (VBDs) are synergistic with (anthropogenic) climate change. It was already known that global warming exacerbates VBDs by speeding up the breeding of insects and providing ideal environments in which they can live, but Singer and Bulled gives us the terminology with which to express this. Another key point they make is that due to classed and racialized patterns of housing and recreation, it is more likely to be white middle-class Americans living or hunting/fishing/hiking in suburban and rural areas, which in turn means they are more likely to have regular contact with disease-carrying ticks which inhabit vegetative and wooded places (2016: 449). This invites us to consider what happens when an illness coincides with relative privilege rather than poverty and marginality.

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Macauda’s (2007: 21) doctoral dissertation on Lyme Disease in Storrs-Mansfield, Connecticut and Block Island, Rhode Island is also a source of inspiration for this project. He deploys the ‘Health Belief Model’ to investigate how locals think about Lyme Disease, which involves (among other things) assessing perceived susceptibility, perceived severity and self-efficacy at implementing preventative measures against a medical condition. Though we are not using the Health Belief Model itself, this provides a starting point for what to ask informants about Lyme disease in terms of the risk they believe it poses to their wellbeing. 

What do other social sciences have to say?

Outside of medical anthropology, there are various other social scientists who have proposed novel ways of thinking about VBDs. For instance, Dyer et al. (2017) talk about how forest fragmentation and changing human settlement patterns alter the distribution of insect vectors, such as those that carry Chagas Disease. As Connecticut is a forested state, this applies to vector numbers here too. Furthermore, Plessis’ (2017) work out of International Relations on how infectious microbes construct 'non-human borders' that limit where humans can safely go is also relevant here as it encourages us to think about what it means for the natural environment to move out of human control, as it will likely do as climate change progresses. Indeed, environmental historian Biehler (2011: 445) documents some of the ways that humans have fought back against the invasion of ticks in Lyme-endemic regions where such 'non-human borders' are encroaching into residential areas. These include the ‘tick-scaping’ of backyards and the hunting of deer who are thought of with ‘a sense of anger and disgust’ for bringing dangerous parasites near houses. The author also briefly touches on how some have called for putting a stop to exurban development that actually fragments the forest and forces wildlife closer to humans, but notes these voices are often suppressed because they advocate against economic ventures. Overall, these researchers add a lot into the conversation about how physical environments have been carved up and claimed by different species and what happens when these borders are suddenly changed or crossed.

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Finally, there are two studies of significance to do with people’s experiences of vectors and VBDs we can draw on. Firstly, Mawby and Lovett’s (1998: 719) analysis of the perceived risk of ticks in East Anglia, UK revealed that nearly half of those surveyed in the area did not know that Lyme Disease could be transmitted from tick bites. Twenty years on and in an area much more associated with the disease than the southern UK, we can assess whether more of the population demonstrates awareness of what Lyme Disease is and how it is caught. Secondly, to supplement medical anthropology’s methodology of using illness narratives to capture people’s perceptions of health conditions, Baize-Ward’s (2018: 66-84) dissertation technique for her Doctorate of Education of doing poetry workshops as a form of therapy for Lyme Disease sufferers proves that narrative forms can be valuable and powerful in assisting social scientists’ comprehension of how patients process and live with their diagnoses. Thus, it is certainly helpful to consider work of different disciplines to get a well-rounded view of the topic and what has been said so far.