Dr. Emily Mendenhall: Stigma, Syndemics and Diabetes

Dr. Emily Mendenhall is the Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Her books, Rethinking Diabetes: Entanglements with Trauma, Poverty, and HIV (2019, Cornell) and Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrant Women (2012, Routledge), have received wide acclaim. You can learn more about her work here and here, read her COVID-19 Vox article here, and follow her on Twitter.

In this podcast Dr. Mendenhall discusses the concept of syndemics, referring to the clustering of social and health problems, with examples from her global research that explores diabetes, HIV, violence, depression and trauma. She describes the way that stigma can be linked with multiple health conditions, how stigma differs by gender and between global contexts, and the many ways we can work together to create social change.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.