Hello, I'm Matty Crone. I'm a health scientist. And I'm Ria Reis. I'm a professor of medical anthropology. Together, we will guide you through this course on syndemics. You might not know the term syndemics, but that is why you joined our course. In this course, we will guide you through what a syndemic is and how you can explore syndemic processes in a population. But let's start with our personal motivation for this field. How about you Matty? Well, in my research, I encountered a group of pregnant women who seemed to have all types of adverse health and social problems. They have mental health problems, high levels of stress, they are overweight, and smoked during pregnancy, are still quite young, have a low educational level, and are in unstable relationships. Because of that, these women have all kinds of negative pregnancy outcomes affecting them personally as well as their child. The problem with this is that the actual public health efforts do not seem to be effective as they often focus at only one problem at a time. So why and how do these problems accumulate? And why are they so difficult to address? Syndemic theory provides some answers, and this is what drives my interest in the field of syndemics. And what about you Ria? My personal interest in syndemic theory stems amongst others from experiences in Southern Africa. In the 1980s, I lived three happy years in Swaziland, now called a Eswatini. I conducted my doctoral fieldwork on epilepsy and religious medical pluralism. At the time, we did not know how relentless HIV would spread amongst Eswati population. No one had foreseen the devastations of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, its resurgent companion. My engagement with the country profoundly changed my professional outlook. From a religious anthropologist, I transformed into an applied medical anthropologist. My focus shifted to how social and cultural conditions shape people's accumulation of vulnerabilities, as well as resilience. Trained as an ethnographer, I now firmly believe in the need of interdisciplinarity to break the negative health spirals among marginalized populations. As we will show, interdisciplinarity is at the heart of a syndemic approach. The course contains four modules. In the first module we will introduce you to the concept of syndemics, and when and how it was developed. We will also present you some examples of interacting health and social conditions. In the second module, we will show how you can identify whether health and social conditions cluster, and then quantitatively assess whether these conditions interact and lead to a higher burden of disease than expected. The third module is about qualitative research. You will be introduced to methods such as observations and interviews and how they can be used to explore syndemics. Finally, you will learn how you can combine these qualitative approaches with quantitative research methods. What core mixed-method designs to use and how to develop such a design. By using mixed-methods, you may gain a more comprehensive understanding of syndemic vulnerabilities in an individual or community. This can help you in developing and implementing more effective interventions and policies for such populations. Trough lectures, hands-on exercises, and self-study such as readings, you will gain knowledge and experience in the basics of syndemic research. This course is intended for anyone interested in tackling health inequalities. For example, masters students, physicians, public health specialists, health and medical scientists, social scientists, or healthcare managers. We hope you enjoy the course.
