Rebecca Henderson

Rebecca is a third-year MD/PhD candidate at the University of Florida. Her PhD will be in Anthropology. She is originally from Philadelphia and her interests include travel and fiction. She is committed to health equity and is interested in understanding how cultural and social factors impact the spread of disease, and in the ways these factors likewise impact disease interventions, development and aid projects.

 

Project: "Rapid Ethnographic Exploration of Factors Related to Community Engagement in Malaria Elimination in Haiti"
6/01/2018 - 8/18/2018
Haiti

What does the Kean Fellowship mean to you?
The Kean Fellowship represents my first opportunity to get my feet wet in the world of research in infectious disease. The support of the Fellowship has allowed me to get experience with hands-on research in infectious disease: meeting patients, physicians, epidemiologists and community members. I have been able to experience the challenges and rewards of this kind of research and see the ways that infectious disease is impacted by a complex system of social, cultural, political, economic and structural factors.

What do you anticipate learning?
This Fellowship has been my first step toward what I hope will be a career centered around research. I have already learned so much—not just about Haitian language, culture and disease but about the ways that problems, such as malaria, are the result not just of pathogens but of societal factors. I also have learned a lot about research design and implementation as well as practical issues such as accessing isolated populations when there is no road, or doing data entry without electricity. Most of all, the fellowship has helped me to demonstrate to myself how much I love research in this environment!

What interests you about tropical medicine and what problems are you interested in solving?
My primary interest in tropical medicine is to build a better understanding of the ways diseases exist in social contexts in order to help to address global health inequities. I am interested in studying diseases and the social, cultural and economic structures that produce them as well as the provision of medical aid, development and healthcare strengthening.