Keywords: Chronic Diseases, Mental Health, India, Brazil, Food Insecurity
Research Interests
- mental health, especially locally relevant ways of understanding and describing distress that fall outside of biomedical psychiatry
- gender and its impacts on health risk and experience
- chronic, nutrition-related diseases, especially type 2 diabetes: individual-level experiences and structural determinants of risk
- food insecurity and food choice as economies become globally integrated
- India, Brazil, and the USA
How do the everyday realities of lifestyle, nutrition, and social structure shape people's physical and mental health around the world? This is the central question motivating my work. My research has explored how the day-to-day management of type 2 diabetes shapes North Indian women's abilities to participate in social roles considered appropriate for women of their age, class, and caste groups. I also study the links between food insecurity, mental health, and chronic diseases in rural Amazonia, Brazil. Click on the links below to learn more about each of these ongoing projects. My previous work has focused on social stigma and Hansen's disease (leprosy) in India, as well as adolescents' life aspirations, social support, and health in Ethiopia.
Dr. Weaver studies the relationships between type 2 diabetes, women's gendered social roles, and their mental health in New Delhi, India.
In 2012, Dr. Weaver started an ongoing research project in rural Para state, Brazil, that explores the cultural value of local and imported foods, how food insecurity shapes people's access to those foods, and how those factors shape physical and mental health.
