Dr. Karen Slonim has been studying health and disease for the last eleven years. She is trained as a Medical Anthropologist interested in social determinants of health research, evolutionary perspectives on understanding physiological adaptation to pathogens, the well being of Aboriginal and at risk populations, infectious and chronic diseases, and the importance of informal networks of care. Karen recently completed her doctorate degree at University of Missouri-Columbia in anthropology where she was exposed to mathematical modeling techniques which aided her in addressing questions pertaining to morbidity during past pandemics. Prior to this she had the good fortune of working with Dr. Ann Herring at McMaster University where she acquired the ability to explore archival data utilizing both quantitative and qualitative analytical tools.
She combines theoretical paradigms from anthropology, history, sociology, ecology and biology in order to better understand the conditions that shaped historical experiences with infectious disease. Her fascination with the 1918-19 influenza pandemic has lasted almost a decade due to an enduring curiosity about how this once ‘forgotten pandemic’ was able to take hold and reshape global populations from the spring of 1918 to the winter of 1919. Most recently she has published material on the Spanish influenza epidemic experience of two Aboriginal communities from the Lake Winnipeg region of Manitoba and co-authored a book chapter on the epidemiology of human disease. In addition to her work at DPRA, Karen is finishing a contract with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion aimed at assessing their 2009 H1N1 pandemic response and teaching upper level courses in Medical Anthropology at McMaster University.
email: Karen.Slonim [at] dpra.com