Applied Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith

 

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith (Source: Yale University School of Medicine)

You may have heard of Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith prior to reading this blog post.  She was recently appointed by President Biden to lead a task force that focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in health care.  Prior to that she served as one of the three co-chairs to then President-Elect Biden’s National Covid-19 Advisor Board.  Nunez-Smith is an accomplished medical professional, but what you may not know is that she started out as a biological anthropologist, hence why she is featured here.  This blog post will discuss Nunez-Smith’s life, inspiration for going into medicine, and how her anthropological background aids in her research and vast accomplishments.

Marcella Nunez-Smith grew up in the US Virgin Islands, and she credits her family for inspiring her to pursue a career in medicine.  Her mother and grandmother were both medical professionals, so she would spend much of her free time reading their textbooks and professional medical literature.  Ultimately, however, it was her father’s failing health that locked her into pursuing medicine.  When her father had a stroke and went undiagnosed and untreated for related medical issues Nunez-Smith saw first hand how health care disparities can and do gravely harm individuals, particularly the most vulnerable populations.

When she graduated high school at the age of 16 she pursued degrees in biological anthropology and psychology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.  She continued her studies by attending Jefferson Medical College, where she earned her M.D., followed by her residency at Harvard and the Women’s Hospital in Boston.  She later earned a Masters of Health Science from Yale.  She returned to the Virgin Islands where she opened a large research center that focused on providing equitable medical care to residents, while also researching health disparities in the region.  She later moved on to work at Yale University as the founder and direct of Yale’s Equity Research and Innovation Center, an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, and multiple other roles.

Her biological anthropology background enables her to approach medicine from both a scientific and sociocultural perspective.  She recognizes the need to use science to solve the complex health problems but also to understand the effects of sociocultural, economic, structural, and historical factors in preventing appropriate health care practices, be it by medical professionals or patients.  Medical professionals may not trust their patients or see their patients as willfully ignoring sound medical advice, while patients’ reactions may be due to fears of greater financial burdens, previous bad experiences among doctors, or another legitimate concern.  Her research has and continues to focus largely on stereotypes of minorities-both as medical professionals and patients-and how that affects health care; she has also focused on distrust among patients and medical professionals (and vice versa) and how that affects the administration of health care and desire among patients to seek out medical help.  In her new role as the leader of the Biden administration’s task force that focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in health care her expertise will hopefully address these very real issues that exist throughout the United States and lead to real solutions so that health care is accessible and fairly provided to all.

 

Works Cited

Nielsen, E. A. (2020, November 11). Marcella Nunez-Smith (1981- ). Retrieved from Black Past: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/marcella-nunez-smith-1981/

Nunez-Smith, M. (2019, July 15). Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS. Retrieved from Yale School of Medicine: https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/marcella_nunez-smith/

Rabin, R. C. (2021, January 8). Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith Takes Aim at Racial Gaps in Health Care. New York Times.

 

 

Black American Sign Language (BASL)

Today’s blog post is the final installment in the Black History series, but it will not be the final post about Black/African American history to be featured on this blog.  As anthropology is a four field approach it is appropriate that a post dedicated to each of these fields be composed.  So far cultural anthropology and archaeology have been featured, and while biological/physical anthropology will not be featured this post will cover linguistic anthropology. 

Figure 1: Nakia Smith communicating with BASL signs

The year 2020 is remembered for a great many cultural events, including but not limited to the Covid-19 societal changes, the rise in Black Lives Matters demonstrations, and the viral videos of Nakia Smith (Figure 1) signing with her grandfather.  While a video about sign language may not seem that significant it was as Smith was not using the promoted standard of American Sign Language (ASL) but instead a sign language variant known as Black American Sign Language (BASL).  Her videos brought attention and awareness to this popularly used sign language style.  This blog post is going to explain more about the history and linguistic elements of BASL.

 

Black American Sign Language (BASL) is a sign language variant that exists for and among Black deaf signers.  Much like any dialect present in a language it was created out of a need to serve a specific population.  This need came about in the 1800s and 1900s when school segregation by race was prevalent throughout the United States.  You may very well be aware that schools for the hearing were segregated, but you may not know or have considered that schools for the deaf were also segregated.  As a result deaf white and black populations, specifically children, learned different variations of sign language, with whites being taught what is commonly known as American Sign Language (ASL) and blacks learning BASL.  Unfortunately, ASL continues to be promoted as the universal and standard sign language, while BASL, much like Ebonics, is downgraded and viewed negatively.  The reality is that both types of sign language are necessary and serve specific purposes. 

 

Additionally, much like any language BASL actually holds and exhibits Black cultural elements that are missing from ASL.  This is particularly emphasized in BASL’s unique vocabulary.  Ebonics terms are incorporated into BASL, which is not the case in ASL.  This is where an important note of caution is required.  When non-BASL signers use BASL specific signs without permission this can be a type of cultural appropriation.

 

The incorporation of Ebonics terms into BASL is not the only difference between BASL and ASL, however.  There are various other phonological and syntax differences.  There are differences in handedness among BASL and ASL signers.  Handedness refers to the use of two hands or one hand to sign.  The rules for these choices vary between ASL and BASL signers.  Additionally, the location of where signs are made in relation to the body are also different, and even among BASL signers there are variations in choice by geographical region of the signer.  Signing space, meaning the amount of space in front of the body that is used to sign, tends to be greater among BASL signers than ASL signers.  Lastly, repetition, which refers to the repeated use of the same sign within the same turn, differences also exist.  ASL signers tend to use repetition in questions, whereas BASL signers use repetition in declarative sentences. 

 

Works Cited

AnnL. Black American Sign Language. 27 August 2020. Electronic. 22 February 2021.

Hill, Joseph, et al. "The Black ASL (American Sign Language) Project: An Overview." Lanehart, Sonja. The Oxford Handbook of African American Language . New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 316-337. Print.

Kottke, Jason. Learn Some Black American Sign Language. 1 December 2020. Electronic. 22 February 2021.