Dr. Tony L. Whitehead

Dr. Whitehead is Professor of Medical Anthropology, and Director (and founder) of the Cultural Systems Analysis Group (CuSAG), Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland (UM). He served as department chairperson from 1987 to 1993, and is co-coordinates graduate training the anthropology of community, health, and development. Dr. Whitehead received a bachelors degree in Sociology from Shaw University in 1965, and a Masters of Science in Hygiene degree in Public Health and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969 and 1976 respectively. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland in 1988, he was a faculty member in the Department of Health Education, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill from 1976 to 1987. It was while at UNC that he developed his research and program development models which integrate anthropological methods and theories and health program applications, particularly in community based settings. Dr. Whitehead has broad research and technical assistance experiences in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, related to such topics as AIDS, cancer, hypertension, men and family planning, adolescent motherhood, food and health, arthritis, and evaluations of community health and development programs. As a researcher, his expertise is in ethnographic and qualitative methods used in community assessment research and program evaluation. His research has received support from the Russell Sage, Rockefeller, and Annie E. Casey Foundations, the National Research Council, the Agency for International Development, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Cancer Institute, Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institutes of Child Health and Development, the National Park Service, and local health care agencies such as the Baltimore City and Prince Georges County Health Departments, the AIDS Administration of the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and Liberty Medical Center of Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Whitehead has published over 30 journal articles and book chapters in his areas of research interest. He is presently completing his third book for the University of Illinois Press around issues of "gender constructs" (cultural and subjective definitions of being male or female) and a range of health and social issues (e.g., applied ethnographic research methods, sexual and fertility attitudes and behavior, AIDS, violence, and drug entrepreneurship, etc.).

Link to the CuSAG website

See an HTML version of Dr. Whitehead's CV