Alexandra Brewis Slade
Professor
Director, School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Arizona
SHESC Themes: Biological, Social and Cultural Dimensions of Human Health; Societies and their Natural Environments
Field Specializations: Biocultural Approaches to Human Health & Nutrition, Human Ecology & Adaptation, Medical Anthropology, Demography, Urban US Minorities
Regional Foci: Pacific Islands, Latin America
Contact: Alexandra Brewis Slade, SHESC 206
Research:
In one line of research, Brewis Slade is interested in better understanding the contexts and meanings of the increasingly high rates of obesity globally. This includes projects to unravel the complexities of both how and why some groups (such as people in poverty) are so much more at risk of obesity, and others focused on how people understand and react to obesity, and the stigma and suffering this can create.
In another set of related studies, Brewis Slade is interested in the cultural and biocultural contexts of water insecurity – how people understand and respond to the global and local decline of good quality and ample water supplies.
Both sets of studies allow her to integrate her training in biological anthropology, cultural/medical anthropology and demography and her passion for field-based community-focused research to address fundamental real-world problems with health and environmental implications. Given the complexity of the problems around obesity and water and food insecurity, she mostly works collaboratively in diverse teams of scientists, including sociologists, geographers, mathematicians, ecologists, biologists and other anthropologists. Although much of her early research was focused in Micronesia, currently her field collaborations are globally spread – from subsistence villages in Fiji to London and Mexico, as well as the South Phoenix neighborhoods much closer to the ASU campus.
Research Projects:
Cultural Norms and Vulnerability to Fat-Stigma
Small World/Big Bodies
Culture, Health and Environment in Urban South Phoenix
Social Networks, Food Security and Wellbeing in Immigrant Households
The South Phoenix Collaborative: Leveraging Culture & History to Support Healthy, Resilient and Just Communities
Built Urban Environments, Obesity and Environmental Justice
Food Quality and Insecurity in Urban Food Deserts in San Lorenzo, Paraguay
Global Ethnohydrology Study
Water Insecurity, Institutional Injustice and Emotional Distress in Cochabamba, Bolivia
Antibiotic Therapy from Both Sides of the Counter and Both Sides of the Border
Teaching:
Brewis Slade teaches courses in global health, medical anthropology and research design to undergraduate and graduate students. Most of her courses directly or indirectly address the tricky process of how to execute scientific research integrating the cultural and biological aspects of the human condition. She is also very involved in curricular design and worked centrally in the development of the school's B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in Global Health and many of the school's study abroad programs, including New Zealand, Fiji, China, Australia and London.
Service:
Brewis Slade is kept busy in her administrative duties as executive director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and director of the Center for Global Health. She also provides leadership to the South Phoenix Collaborative, a cross-cutting initiative to develop and test new models for how we can best apply social science research to improve the lives of vulnerable communities.
Select Publications:
Brewis, A. (2011). Obesity: Cultural and biocultural perspectives. Rutgers University Press.
Hadley, C., Brewis, A. & Pike, I. (2010). Does less autonomy erode women's health? Yes. No. Maybe. American Journal of Human Biology, 22, 103-110.
Gartin, M., Brewis, A. & Schwartz, N. (2010). Non-prescription antibiotic therapy: Cultural models on both sides of the counter and both sides of the border. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 24(1), 85-107.
Brewis, A. & Lee, S. (2010). Children's work, earnings, and nutrition in urban Mexican shantytowns. American Journal of Human Biology, 22(1), 60-68.
Lee, S. & Brewis, A. (2009). Children's autonomous food acquisition in Mexican shantytowns. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 48(6), 435-456.
Cutts, B., Darby, K., Boone, C. & Brewis, A. (2009). City structure, obesity, and environmental justice: An integrated analysis of physical and social barriers to walkable streets and park access. Social Science and Medicine, 69(9), 1314-1322.
Jehn, M. & Brewis, A. (2009). Paradoxical malnutrition in mother-child pairs: Untangling the phenomenon of over- and under-nutrition in underdeveloped economies. Economics & Human Biology, 7, 28-35.
