Candler Professor of History and International Health Randall Packard directs the center, which supports interdisciplinary studies.

by Cathryn Meuer ark Padilla was well on his way to a PhD in cultural anthropology - the open-ended, qualitative study of human society - when his academic career took a sharp turn toward the hard sciences. In the fall of 199 7, Padilla began a brand new interdisciplinary fellowship which allowed him to study the quantitative science of public health. Padilla and three other graduate students formed the first group of fellows supported by Emory's Center for the Study of Health, Culture, & Society (CSHCS). The center funds a one-year excursion across academic boundaries to foster creative solutions t o public health problems. In a sense, the fellows trade places. Two students from Emory's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences enroll at the Rollins School of Public Health, and two public health scholars immerse themselves in the arts or social sciences. Padilla, with a year of biostatistics and epidemiology now under his belt, says his year of courses in public health was invaluable. In January, he will take his newfound knowledge to the Dominican Republic for field work that spans public health and a nthropology. He plans to help develop culturally sensitive HIV/AIDS prevention programs that target heterosexual men. According to Padilla, in impoverished neighborhoods around the capital, Santa Domingo, "women live in such disempowered situations that, if men don't want to use a condom, they won't." Drawing on his anthropology training, Padilla will also look at current patterns in gender relations to uncover the root causes of HIV infection. Padilla's literature survey revealed that many poor Dominican families have a structure where women head t he household, often bear children by different men, and only occasionally receive financial support. It described men as absent fathers, tied to street culture, but proud to have children. "Fatherhood reflects well on masculinity. Having a lot of children is a status symbol in the Dominican Republic," says Padilla.

Current fellow Nicola Dawkins plans to write her anthropology dissertation on intimate partner violence. During the training period, she hopes to learn the tools and quantitative techniques that will assist her in examining the issue scie ntifically. Her goal is to identify which social programs are successful in helping women escape cycles of violence.

n interdisciplinary approach such as Padilla's is exactly what CSHCS program founder, Randall Packard, wants to nurture in the fellowship students. Candler Professor of History and International Health, Pack ard launched the center in 1993 to encourage meaningful interdisciplinary study. A cross-disciplinary scholar himself, he understands the benefits to be gained by public health and social science students who study another discipline in depth. "The fellow ship program encourages the serious pursuit of interdisciplinary studies, as opposed to dabbling," he says. For humanities students who take on public health, the year is "like learning a language - you're learning the language of epidemiology," says Packard. "You can't learn by a course here and there." For public health students, the fellowship is a way to enrich their understanding of a different culture and learn the most effective ways of communicating health messages. "Otherwise, there's little time in the curriculum for this type of reflection a bout the broader context in which the work is being done," Packard says. During her year as a CSHCS fellow, Linda Block focused on media and communications, choosing courses from departments across the Emory campus. She found the experience refreshing. "I'm still doing public health," Block says. "That's what I want to do. That's what I've always wanted to do. But now I have this other world to draw on." Since finishing her fellowship, Block has landed a job where communications and public health meet. She helps coordinate state media campaigns against smoking for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health.

During her fellowship, Cindy Ma learned that religion plays a large role in health practices. For example, Pakistani birth attendants applying ghee, ash, and cow dung to umbilical cords, a common cultural and spiritual practice, contribut e to soaring rates of tetanus, a problem Ma studied for her thesis.

he students drawn to the CSHCS are a diverse group with interests that roam around the globe. One former fellow is now working to prevent anemia among pregnant women in Guatemala. Another is researching the role of intrauterine growth retardation as a possible cause of metabolic disease later in life, particularly obesity and cardiovascular disease, which are rising dramatically in many developing nations. The interests of the current year's fellows are no less varied. Nicola Dawkins, for example, wants to learn the tools and quantitative techniques to scientifically examine the issue of intimate partner violence. In her anthropology dissertation, she ho pes to identify social programs that help women escape the cycle of violence. Fellow Cindy Ma wants to learn all she can about religion, culture, and the status of women in south Asian nations. During studies for her master's program, Ma learned that traditional ways of treating the umbilical wound in newborns were causing many Pakistani babies to die of tetanus. In fact, she coauthored a published paper on the problem. After her fellowship, Ma would like to find work on global aspects of infectious disease. Heather King, an international health student, hopes to work with Native American and Latino populations during her fellowship year. She became interested in the intersection of health and culture while working at the Navajo Nation Women, Infants, and Children program. And fellow Gayatri Reddy, a doctoral student in anthropology, is preparing a dissertation on the eunuch transvestites of Hyderbad, India, known as kothis. She believes public health methodology and epidemiology skills are important tools to address the needs of this special population. For most of these students, the CSHCS fellowship means extra time and work before they can finish graduate school and find a paying job. But they say the knowledge gained is well worth the effort. Center director Randy Packard sees another kind of payo ff coming "three to four years down the line," when the fellows finish important dissertations and become leaders in the drive to improve public health. More information on the CSHCS can be found at their web site, www.emory.edu/CSHCS.