Dr. Scheder’s involvement with Latin@ communities began in the late 1970s, in community health for migrant agricultural workers. Her research focused on diabetes as an outcome of the life stress presented by social inequality. As a Post-doctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii, she conducted research on health disparities among Pacific Islanders, and on HIV/AIDS prevention among injection drug users. Dr. Scheder’s work as a documentary and ethnographic film producer/director has been shown at he Hawaii International Film Festival. Her teaching includes anthropology, race/ethnicity, and a newly designed course for the UW Department of Medical History and Bioethics, “Cultural Perspectives on Aging, Grief, Death and Dying."

Education

• PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Specialization and Research Interests
Medical and biocultural anthropology; health disparities; social inequality, colonialism and health; Latino migrant laborers; Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Asian American Studies; complementary and alternative medicine; ethnographic and documentary film and theater.

Selected Publications

• Rationale and Methods for a Trial Assessing Placebo, Echinacea, and Doctor-Patient Interaction in the Common Cold. Coauthored with B. Barrett, & J. Marchand/ Explore/ 3 (6): 561- 572; 2007.
• Placebo, Meaning, and Health. Coauthored with B. Barrett, D. Muller, D.. Rakel, L. Rabago, & J. Marchland. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine/ 49 (2): 178-198; 2006.
• The Spirit’s Cell: Reflections on Diabetes and Political Meaning. In Indigenous Peoples and Diabetes: Community Empowerment and Wellness. Mariana Leal Ferreira and Gretchen Chesley Lang (Eds). Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Pp. 335-355, 2006.
• Emotion, Grief, and Power: Reconsideration of Hawaiian Health. In Indigenous Peoples and Diabetes: Community Empowerment and Wellness. Mariana Leal Ferreira and Gretchen Chesley Lang (Eds).Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Pp. 33-51, 2006.
• What Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practitioners Say About Health and Health Care. Coauthored with B. Barrett, & J. Marchand / Annals of Family Medicine/ (2): 253-259, 2004.
• Themes of Holism, Empowerment, Access, and Legitimacy Define Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine in Relation to Conventional Biomedicine. Coauthored with B. Barrett, & J. Marchand / Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine/ 9 (6): 937-947, 2003.
• Bridging the Gap Between Conventional and Alternative Medicine: Results of a Qualitative Study of Patients and Providers. Coauthored with B. Barrett, & J. Marchand / Journal of Family Practice/, 49: 234-39, 2000.
• Migrant Farmworkers in Wisconsin: A Twenty Year Re-study, 1978-1998. With Doris P. Slesinger and Thomas Wheatley. 62nd Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, Chicago, IL. 1999.
• Scheder, Jo C. Cultural Awareness and HIV: Consensus Exercise. In/ The HeART of Training: A Manual of Approaches to Teaching About HIV/AIDS/. Rockville, MD : Health Resources & Services Admin. 1998.
• The Death of Health: Cosmology and Emotion in Colonial Depopulation. Presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, PA. 1998.
• A Sickly-Sweet Harvest: Farmworker Diabetes and Social Equality. Medical Anthropology Quarterly (n.s.) 2(3):251-277, 1988.
• Migration, Stress, and Changing Health Patterns Among Mexican-Americans and Samoans. Presented at 43rd Annual Meeting, Society for Applied Anthropology, San Diego. 1983

Selected Documentaries

• 1992   "Stepping Into the Light," AIDS among Asians and Pacific Islanders in Hawai'i.
• 1992   "The Making of Fortune," the efforts of Kumu Kahua Theatre to produce culturally relevant theatre in Hawai'i, focusing on the production of the play "Fortune".
• 1985   "No Place Like Home," Vietnamese and Laotian refugees in Hawai'i.

Contact Jo Scheder