Lauren Carruth, PhD 

Former Students: "Health | Food | Culture" Facebook Group

Bio:

Professor Lauren Carruth is a medical anthropologist specializing in humanitarian assistance, global health, food security, refugees, and the Horn of Africa. Professor Carruth leads the Environmental Sustainability and Global Health Thematic Area within the School of International Studies at American University. Most of her continuing ethnographic work focuses on the lasting social and health system effects of episodic humanitarian interventions in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. She focuses on four research areas: (1) the lives and livelihoods of persons who form the local staffs and research subjects of health and humanitarian relief programs, (2) global health diplomacy and the social and political work of clinical care in emergencies (3) the relationship between food insecurity, medical insecurity, and chronic diseases among displaced populations in Ethiopia, and (4) emerging zoonotic diseases in the Horn of Africa. Her research has been published in the journals BMJ, The Lancet, Social Science & Medicine, Disasters, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Culture Medicine & Psychiatry, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, and Global Public Health. Prior to arriving at American University, Prof. Carruth was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University in the Global Health and Health Policy Program, and at George Washington University in the Elliott School of International Affairs. Between 2002 and 2007 she worked for the UN World Food Program in Ethiopia, UNICEF in Ethiopia, and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University.

Research Areas of Expertise: 

Medical anthropology, global health science and policy, humanitarian assistance, population displacement and migration, international nutrition, food security, emerging infectious and zoonotic diseases, community-based ethnography, institutional ethnography, and cultures and histories of the Horn of Africa.