Jennifer Derr
University of California-Santa Cruz, CA·Social Science·Early-career
Government decisions about land and water can reshape public health for generations. This history-of-science project follows that thread through diseases of the liver.
- Fields
Social Science
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
history of science
history of medicine
environmental history
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Trace, through archival research, how the 19th-century shift to perennial irrigation changed rural ecology and labor and helped spread schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease causing liver fibrosis.
- Examine 1950s–1960s global medical exchanges about schistosomiasis and the public health policies put in place to treat it, using archives and interviews.
- Analyze the rise of Hepatitis C as a public health concern from the late 1980s and the present-day politics surrounding access to anti-Hepatitis C medications.
More about the research
It begins with state-led changes to farming that helped spread schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that scars the liver (fibrosis). It then turns to later public health campaigns that responded to the disease, and finally to Hepatitis C and today's politics of access to treatment. The project sits where three fields meet: Middle East studies, the history of medicine and environmental history.
Why it matters
Tracing how irrigation policy, schistosomiasis campaigns and Hepatitis C treatment are connected could help explain how environmental interventions create long-term health burdens for rural communities. This history could inform present-day debates about public health policy and fair access to anti-Hepatitis C medications.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of California-Santa Cruz: 15 labs on PI Pages, $218M a year on research, 183 research doctorates a year.
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