Arachu Castro
Samuel Z. Stone Chair of Public Health in Latin America- Department of International Health and Sustainable Development
- General Latin America
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.
Courses
Additional Info
Number of Dissertations or Theses Supervised in the Last 5 Years: 5
Research
Medical anthropology, reproductive health, infectious disease, early childhood development, social inequality, health policy, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Degrees
- MPH, Harvard School of Public Health, International Health, 1998
- Ph.D., University of Barcelona with credits from University of California, Berkeley, Sociology, 1997
- Ph.D., EHESS, Social Anthropology & Ethnology, 1996
- M.A., École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Social Anthropology & Ethnology, Paris, 1992
- R.D., Polytechnic Institute, Barcelona, Nutrition, 1989
- M.A., University of Barcelona, History/Social Anthropology, 1988
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
- President of the Society for Medical Anthropology, 2017-2019
- 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
- Puerto Rico
- Mexico
- Nicaragua
- Honduras
- Colombia
- Venezuela
- Peru
- Argentina
Selected Publications
- Castro A. La violencia obstétrica o la provocación de la vulnerabilidad estructural en la atención del parto Buenos Aires: Cuadernos del ISCo. Universidad Nacional de Lanús, 2024 (in press).
- Preaux A, Castro A. Perspectives on intersectionality from public health and medical anthropology to promote health equity and reproductive justice. In Pamela L. Geller (ed.) The Routledge Handbook to Feminist Anthropology. New York: Routledge, 2024
- Sánchez-Vincitore LV, Valdez ME, Jiménez AS, Ruiz-Matuk CB, Castro A, Alonso Pellerano MA. Medición nacional del desarrollo infantil durante épocas de crisis: Experiencia de la República Dominicana durante... COVID-19; Revista Cubana de Pediatría. 2024;96
- Sáenz R, Nigenda G, Gómez-Duarte I, Rojas K, Castro A, Serván-Mori E. Persistent inequities in maternal mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1995-2019. International Journal for Equity in Health. 2024; 23(1).
- Sánchez-Vincitore L, Cubilla-Bonnetier D, Valdez ME, Jiménez A, Peterson P, Vargas K, Castro A. The impact of ever breastfeeding on children ages 12 to 36 months... . Infant Behavior and Development. 2024 Jun;75. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101950.
- Goldstein S, Mabry RM, Friedman EA, Sales ALLF, Castro A. Achieving and maintaining equitable health outcomes for all, including for future generations. Int J Soc Determinants Health Health Serv. 2024 Jan;54(1):65-67.
- *Preaux A, Castro A. Obstetricians and the delivery of obstetric violence: An ethnographic account from the Dominican Republic. In Davis-Floyd R, Premkumar A (eds.) Obstetric Violence and Systemic Disparities...New York: Berghahn Books, 2023, pp. 23-43.
- Castro A. El día que Paul murió [The day Paul died]. Revista de Antropología Social. 2023;32(2):215-217. doi: 10.5209/raso.91757.
- *Kaufman H, Howell S, *Stolow J, Andrinopoulos K, Anglewicz P, *Burt M, Castro A. Self-perceived health of older adults in Latin America and the Caribbean: A scoping review. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2023 June; 47:e105
- Castro A. Social medicine and the social sciences in Latin America: Conceptual tensions for the transformation of public health in the 20th century. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health. 2023 May
