Bradley Stoner’s work as a physician at clinics like the North Central Community Health Center in St. Louis informs the kind of research he conducts as an anthropologist.

With his teaching of courses in the Department of Anthropology and the School of Medicine, his commitments as a physician, and his medical research, it’s hard to believe that Associate Professor Bradley Stoner also has time to coordinate the minor in public health and direct the Medicine & Society program.

Since joining Washington University’s faculty in 1995, Stoner has worked to integrate the practical lessons of his clinical career with the theoretical approaches of anthropology. Blending his interests, he focuses his teaching and research on understanding the public’s attitudes toward health and illness and identifying ways to improve public health. Most recently, Stoner has focused on the sociocultural aspects of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and ways to improve rates of STD diagnosis and treatment.

“I believe that my work as a physician informs the kind of research that I do as an anthropologist,” says Stoner. “I also think my perspective as an anthropologist makes me a better physician. So, while it seems like separate areas, in fact they’re integrated to a much different level than might be obvious.”

In addition to conducting research on the dynamics of STDs, he has worked with the St. Louis County Department of Health STD services since 1995. In this role, he has worked to develop systems for encouraging women diagnosed with chlamydia to be retested after four months to cut down on the rate of re-infection.

Stoner also established the St. Louis STD/HIV Prevention and Training Center, a program providing training to doctors and nurses in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska to help diagnose and treat STDs.

Because of his real-world experience in the field of public health, Stoner was a natural choice to direct Medicine & Society. Through this four-year program, undergraduate students explore the fundamentals of medicine by looking beyond biology to understand the relationships of culture, behavior, and health.

“Public health has a much more practical approach.
I think it really appeals to undergraduates because
it’s something they can really sink their teeth into.”

The modern scientific medical system, Stoner explains, is examined in a greater context of health and healing across the world: “I’m very interested in how people conceive of illness, how they know when they’re sick, how they conceive of what to do about illness. And it’s not cut and dried. One person’s symptom is the way another person lives life on a normal basis.”

Since Medicine & Society began in 2002, several faculty members with interests in the field of public health have joined Washington University. In 2008 Chancellor Mark Wrighton created the Institute for Public Health to stimulate research, teaching, and community engagement; Stoner serves on the Institute’s Faculty Advisory Council. In addition, more students — some preparing for medical school, but many from assorted disciplines — expressed a desire for more academic opportunities in public health.

“Nationally, students are interested in public health and community health. Many of them are going to medical school, but they also want to be able to have a community focus in their approach,” says Stoner. “We reasoned that a minor in public health would meet the needs of a lot of these students.”

In line with these faculty, administration, and student interests, Arts & Sciences began offering a new public health minor in 2008–09. Where Medicine & Society looks to provide a theoretical understanding of the health care system, the public health minor focuses on specific issues in preventing health problems and in applying tools and interventions to keep populations healthy. The minor is open to students from all majors.

“Public health has a much more practical approach. I think it really appeals to undergraduates because it’s something they can really sink their teeth into,” says Stoner. “In public health, you can say, ‘This is something I can do — if I clean up this water supply, all these people won’t get diarrheal illness.’ ”

He first became interested in anthropology while studying as an undergraduate at Harvard University. Since then, anthropology has continued to complement his work as an infectious disease and public health specialist.

Anthropology, Stoner says, offers a unifying perspective to the many disciplines that comprise public heath: “We’re such a broad discipline. What we do as anthropologists has natural sciences components, it certainly has social sciences components, and it ties in with the humanities as well. Anthropology is the natural home for public health within Arts & Sciences.”