About
Tamara Giles-Vernick conducts research at the interstices of ethnohistory and medical anthropology, investigating infectious disease transmission and global health interventions in Africa.
She is the principal investigator of a project examining the changing nature and potential health implications of human contact with great apes in Equatorial Africa. She also leads projects examining hepatitis B vaccination, diagnosis and treatment research in West and Central Africa, and the historical emergence of HIV in Central Africa. Her other health-related research has included infantile diarrhea in the Central African Republic; an historical epidemiology of malaria in West Africa; hepatitis C transmission in hospital and dental settings in Egypt; a comparative history of pandemic influenza; a history of global health in Africa; and the history of epidemiological surveillance.
Awards
- Fellow, Centre de recherches historiques, Institut Pasteur, Paris, 2007–08
- Fellow, Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences, University of Minnesota, 2006–07
- McKnight Summer Fellow, University of Minnesota, 2005
- Aldo Leopold Prize, American Society of Environmental History, 1999
- Robert F. Heizer Prize, American Society for Ethnohistory, 1996
Relevant Publications
Giles-Vernick, T., A. Traoré, and L. Bainilago. “Incertitude, hepatitis B and infant vaccination in West and Central Africa.” Med Anthropol Q. 30, no. 2 (June 2016): 203–21.
Giles-Vernick, T. et al. “Home Care of Diarrheal Children in Bangui’s Therapeutic Landscape (Central African Republic).” Qualitative Health Research 26, no. 2 (2016): 164–75.
Giles-Vernick, T. et al. “The puzzle of Buruli ulcer transmission, ethno-ecological history and the end of ‘love’ in the Akonolinga district.” Cameroon Social Science & Medicine 129 (2015): 20–27.
Bekondi, C. et al. “HBV immunization and vaccine coverage among hospitalized children in Cameroon, Central African Republic and Senegal.” BMC Infectious Diseases 12, no. 15 (2015): 267.
Giles-Vernick, T. et al. “Social History, Biology and the Emergence of HIV in Colonial Africa.” J. Afr. Hist. 54, no. 1 (March 2013): 11–30.