Arachu Castro
Samuel Z. Stone Chair of Public Health in Latin America
Senior Associate Research Fellow

Biography

Arachu Castro, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Samuel Z. Stone Chair of Public Health in Latin America at Tulane University and Senior Research Affiliate at CIPR. Her major interests are how social inequalities are embodied as differential risk for pathologies common among the poor and how health policies may alter the course of epidemic disease and other pathologies afflicting populations living in poverty. As a medical anthropologist trained in public health, Dr. Castro works mostly on health systems responses to infectious disease and women’s health in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has worked in Mexico, Argentina, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Prior to joining Tulane in 2013, she was Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Senior Advisor for Mexico and Guatemala at Partners In Health, and Medical Anthropologist in the Division of Global Health Equity in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women‘€™s Hospital in Boston. Among other awards, Dr. Castro is the recipient of the 2005 Rudolf Virchow Award of the Society for Medical Anthropology and the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on Women and AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2012, she was named Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. She has worked as consultant for PAHO, WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP, and the World Bank.

Degrees

  • M.A., University of Barcelona, History/Social Anthropology, 1988
  • R.D., Polytechnic Institute, Barcelona, Nutrition, 1989
  • M.A., École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Social Anthropology & Ethnology, Paris, 1992
  • Ph.D., EHESS, Social Anthropology & Ethnology, 1996
  • Ph.D., University of Barcelona with credits from University of California, Berkeley, Sociology, 1997
  • MPH, Harvard School of Public Health, International Health, 1998

Academic Experience

  • Samuel Z. Stone Chair of Public Health in Latin America, Tulane University, 2013-
  • Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, 2011-2012
  • Assistant Professor of Social Medicine Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, 2004-11
  • Instructor in Medical Anthropology, Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, 2001-04

Distinctions

  • Fellow, Society for Applied Anthropology, 2012
  • Guggenheim Fellowship, Medicine and Health, United States and Canada Competition, 2010
  • Burke Global Health Fellowship, Harvard Initiative for Global Health, 2009
  • Bacardi Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Latin American Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, 2009
  • Rudolf Virchow Award, Professional Prize, Critical Anthropology of Health Caucus, Society for Medical Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2005
  • Dean’s Letter, Excellence in Teaching (Freshman seminar), Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, 2005
  • Conmemorative Medal for the Centenary of Professor Pedro Kourí. Institute of Tropical Medicine Pedro Kourí. Havana, Cuba, 2001

Languages

  • Spanish
  • French
  • Catalan
  • Portuguese
  • Haitian Creole

Overseas Experience

  • Dominican Republic
  • Cuba
  • Haiti
  • Mexico
  • Nicaragua
  • Colombia
  • Venezuela
  • Peru
  • Argentina

Related Experience

  • Consultant, World Bank, 2012-
  • Consultant, UNDP Regional Center for Latin America and The Caribbean
  • Consultant, UNICEF, 2007- (intermittent)
  • Consultant, Pan American Health Organization, 2001-2011 (intermittent)
  • Medical Anthropologist, Division of Global Health Equity, Dept. Medicine, Brigham and Women‘€™s Hospital, Boston, 2004-2012
  • Secretary-Treasurer, Society for Medical Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2003-06
  • Mexico and Guatemala Projects Director, Partners In Health, Boston, 2001-08
  • Chair, Critical Anthropology of Health Caucus, Society for Medical Anthropology, 1998-2002

Selected Publications

  • 2019. “Childhood asthma from a health equity perspective: The case of Latin America and the Caribbean.” Annals of allergy, asthma & immunology : official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology. 122(5):445-446.e2.
  • 2019. “Obstetric Violence as Reproductive Governance in the Dominican Republic,” with Savage, V. Medical anthropology. 38(2):123-136.
  • 2018. “How social inequalities are embodied as differential risk for pathologies among the poor: Trends in HIV incidence among youth and adolescent pregnancy in Latin America and the Caribbean.” American journal of physical anthropology. 165(S66):44.
  • 2017. “Measuring mistreatment of women during childbirth: a review of terminology and methodological approaches,” with Savage, V. Reproductive health. 14(1):138.
  • 2015. “Assessing equitable care for Indigenous and Afrodescendant women in Latin America,” with Kaufman, H. and Savage, V. Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health. 38(2):96-109.
  • 2013. “Health insurance for the poor decreases access to HIV testing in antenatal care: Evidence of an unintended effect of health insurance reform in Colombia.” With Allison Ettenger and Till Bärnighausen. Health Policy and Planning 1-7; doi: 10.1093/he
  • 2012. “Quality of Life of People with HIV/AIDS Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy in Cuba: A Cross-Sectional Study of the National Population.” With Carlos Aragonés-López, Jorge Pérez-Ávila, and Mary C. Smith Fawzi. American Journal of Public Health 102(5):
  • 2011. Análisis Regional Consolidado de los Informes UNGASS Presentados por 17 Países de América Latina en 2011. Panama: UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Latin America.
  • 2011. “En estado de buena esperanza: Análisis de la experiencia reproductiva en mujeres con VIH en Cuba.” In Jesús Armando Haro (ed.) El planteamiento de una epidemiología sociocultural: Un diálogo en torno a su sentido, métodos y alcances. Buenos Aires:
  • 2010. “Social Inequalities and Dengue Transmission in Latin America.” With Yasmin Khawja and James Johnston. In Plagues and Epidemics: Infected Spaces Past and Present. Eds. Ann Herring and Alan Swedlund. New York, Oxford: Berg Publishers, pp. 231-249.
  • 2009. (Ed.) Challenges Posed by the HIV Epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean 2009. Washington, DC: Pan American Health Organization, UNICEF, and UNAIDS.
  • 2009. “Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis in Latin America and the Caribbean,” in Challenges Posed by the HIV Epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean 2009. Washington, DC: Pan American Health Organization, UNICEF, and UNAID
  • 2004. (Ed.) Unhealthy Health Policy: A Critical Anthropological Examination. With Merrill Singer. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Recently-Taught Latin American-Related Courses: 

Number of Dissertations or Theses Supervised in the Past 5 Years:

5