Carolyn Sargent facts for kids

Carolyn Sargent is a medical anthropologist.

She focuses on gender studies and health issues, with interests in reproductive health, managing the health of women in low-income families, and decision making in the medical field. She has done fieldwork in West Africa, Benin, Jamaica and France where she worked on reproductive health, midwifery, and prenatal care.

She is professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Sargent was the director of women's studies at Southern Methodist University for an extended period. Sargent served as president of the Society for Medical Anthropology.

Sargent is a fan of the French medical insurance system. She has called upon anthropologists to learn about and become involved with national health care issues. In an issue of the Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Sargent asked that anthropologists help to, "shape public discourses and policy in ways we have rarely done before." She served as a community representative to two hospital ethics committees while she lived in Dallas, Texas.

Education

In 1968, Sargent graduated from Michigan State University with High Honors and a Bachelor of Arts. She majored in Japanese, French and international studies and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. However, in her senior year of college took anthropology classes, and a professor suggested that she earn a graduate degree in anthropology. Sargent received a Marshall Scholarship, which finances up to forty young Americans annually to study at the University of Manchester. In 1970, she received her M.A. for social anthropology.

As she was finishing at Manchester, she decided to visit her boyfriend in the Peace Corps in West Africa. She found that they were looking for a researcher and joined the project. She was part of an animal traction project that was training draft animals. Ten men worked on training oxen, while she worked on researching what kind of people invested in the oxen, what types of supplies they required and how much it would cost. In her free time, she went to a local maternity clinic, which fed her interest in maternal and child health.

After three years in the Peace Corps, she returned to the U.S to work on her Ph.D. Her experiences with the maternity clinics in the Peace Corps inspired her dissertation and she returned to West Africa to work on it. In 1979, she received her Ph.D. in anthropology at Michigan State University.

Career

From 1980 to 1985 Sargent was an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University (SMU). She became an associate professor in 1985 and in 1990 became a representative for the Texas Committee on Health Objectives for the 90's sponsored by the Department of Public Health. She became a full professor at SMU in 1992 and director of the Women's Studies Program at SMU in 1994. In 2008 she became a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She was the president of the Society of Medical Anthropology (SMA) until December 2009.

Working with the SMA Task Force, she and other anthropologists look at what anthropologists can do to participate in policy creation. Sargent created the Task Force because she felt that medical anthropologists could give good information and perspective in regard to the national health care debate, seeing that almost all of them had done research of some sort on the subject. They were looking at how infrastructure could help their research become available to policy makers. Most information is available in the form of (unread) articles and books. Sargent had the idea that the Medical Anthropology Student Association and Medical Anthropology Graduate Association could compile annotated digests and shorter versions of articles and books for policy-makers. She is developing the concept of "research on demand." This would involve offering anthropologist research efforts to legislators who were planning on making a policy change.

Honors

• 2003: Enduring Edited Collection Book Prize, Council on Anthropology and Reproduction, SMA (for Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge, with Robbie Davis-Floyd)
• 2005: Ford Senior Research Award, SMU ($15,000)
• 2006: Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant, for International Conference on "Reproduction, Globalization and the State," 1–7 June (Airfare for 18 international participants provided by Wenner-Gren; One week conference lodging and logistical support hosted by Rockefeller at the Bellagio Estate, Italy)

Research

During her time in the Peace Corps, Sargent worked in a maternity clinic that primarily catered to elite women. Sargent began collecting data on baby weights despite disapproval from the midwives working in the clinic. Along with observations compiled over her three-year service this became the focus of her graduate research on reproductive health.

Over the years, Sargent's interests expanded to include medical ethics, immigrant health and the controversial debate regarding the healthcare system in the US For ten years, she conducted extensive research in France. Many of her observations stem from her experiences as a patient. Consequently, she supports a "single-payer" healthcare system for the United States. Sargent conducted contrasting research in Dallas, where she sat on two hospital ethics committees for over a decade and was involved in research projects spanning from community to clinical settings.

Visiting research appointments

• 2005: Associated researcher, IRIS, (Interdisciplinary Research Institute, University of Paris 13, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, INSERM, director Didier Fassin)
• 2000–2005: Research fellow, University of Paris V, Center for the Study of African and Asian Populations (2002 renamed Inter-Population Center)
• 1999–2000: Research fellow, INED (National Institute for the Study of Demography), Paris, France
• 1998: Research fellow, CEPED (Center for the Study of Population and Development), Paris, France
• 1987: Research fellow, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, Jamaica

Research grants

• 2000–2006: "Reproduction and Representations of Family among Malians Migrants in Paris, France" (National Science Foundation, $130,000, Sargent PI) (additionally two REG graduate student supplements)
• 1998–2000: "Reproduction and Representations of Family among Malian Migrants in France" (Wenner-Gren Foundation, $30,000, Sargent PI)
• 1988: "Factors Influencing Prenatal Care Among Low-Income Jamaican Women" with Joan Rawlins, University of The West Indies; (International Center for Research on Women, and United States Agency for International Development, Sargent PI)
• 1987–1989: "Parental Strategies for Child Health in Jamaica" (National Science Foundation, $43,000, $15,000, Sargent PI)
• 1982–1983: "Obstetrical Care Practices in People's Republic of Benin" (National Science Foundation, $20,000, Sargent PI)

Additional experience

• 2003—Community Representative, Parkland Memorial Hospital Ethics Committee
• 1999—Community Representative, Baylor Institutional Ethics Committee

Personal life

Sargent has two daughters.