HEALTH DISPARITY AND HEALTH EQUITY: Indigenous People and Beyond

n recent years, the term ‘Health Disparity’ and ‘Health Equity’ have become increasingly familiar, particularly in the field of public health. The editors of this book have brought together a variety of articles from researchers of diverse fields in anthropology to focus on the importance of health equity among the indigenous peoples, including those who are marginalized or underprivileged. This will help the reader to understand the problem that arises out of health disparity and the various ways to overcome it.

One of the most interesting features of this book is that the contributing authors of most of the articles have discussed their findings based on field work. Besides, researchers of varied other fields of public health, economics, sociology etc., have brought out various dimensions which have added further value for which the volume will be extremely beneficial to policy makers. Such an interdisciplinary approach makes it more useful for both the scholars who are pursuing research in medicine and public health as well as those who are at the foundational stage of their career in teaching as well as research.

Mithun Das is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology and Tribal Studies, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, West Bengal. Earlier he was an Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Sree Chaitanya College, Habra, West Bengal for a long time. He also worked as visiting scientist in the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama, USA, School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology for one year (2014–15) under the UGC-Raman Post-Doctoral fellowship. His areas of interest are ethnic variations in susceptibility to complex non-communicable diseases including diabetes, CVD, metabolic syndrome, and hypertension.

Subir Biswas is a founder faculty member, Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology, West Bengal State University, Barasat, West Bengal. He was also one of the founder faculty of the Department of Anthropology, North Bengal University, Darjeeling, West Bengal since 2001. He got the UGC-IUC associateship at IIAS, Shimla. His areas of interest are anthropological demography, gender, health, and bioethics.

Sarit K. Chaudhuri is a founder Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh where he also taught as one of the faculty members of the Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies (AITS) since 1995. He was having two years of Post-Doctoral Fellowship in SOAS, UK and was the former Director of IGRMS, Bhopal. Since last three decades he is engaged with various issues concerning the tribes of North-East India as well as ethnographic museums of India.