Interviewee: Chinmayi Balusu, MPH, Founding father of Merely Neuroscience | Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Janielle Richards (Weblog Co-coordinators)
Printed: February 21, 2025
Are you able to inform us somewhat bit about your analysis?
My analysis has centered on the intersection of medical humanities and neuroscience, with direct ties to neurological circumstances reminiscent of mind harm, stroke, and Alzheimer’s illness. Coming from a humanities background, I built-in social sciences views to discover how analysis in healthcare interprets into broader society and what that appears like. Particularly, I studied the distinctive challenges ladies face associated to healthcare—each as sufferers and as people navigating healthcare methods. This included exploring cultural stigmas round intercourse and gender, and the way these have an effect on ladies’s experiences in medical contexts.
How did you get into this area?
Initially, I used to be set on pursuing a profession in neuroscience, however throughout faculty, I spotted I didn’t wish to focus solely on the life sciences as many scientific points have broader societal implications. That is what drove me to mix my pursuits in each humanities and science. I wished to raised perceive how these two fields intersect, particularly relating to points like gender, identification, and talk these scientific findings. I additionally wished to combine the social sciences to know the nuances of human identification and the way that impacts the interpretation of science to the actual world, which could be neglected by using scientific analysis strategies alone.
How did you mix the humanities and sciences?
I used to be fortunate to have entry to a Medical Humanities program in faculty, which allowed me to mix life sciences with social science programs and capstone initiatives. After faculty, I pursued a Masters in Public Well being with a spotlight in neuro-epidemiology. Public well being was interesting to me as a result of it’s rooted in statistics, whereas additionally contemplating group engagement and broader societal elements reminiscent of ladies’s well being. This mixture of analysis areas, together with my work on neuroethics and interdisciplinary initiatives, helped me convey collectively the humanities and sciences. My public well being research additional emphasised how vital it’s to know cultural and social contexts that form healthcare experiences of each people and communities.
The place do you see your analysis and profession heading?
Sooner or later, I hope to proceed engaged on initiatives that emphasize the significance of various views in medical analysis, particularly specializing in ladies’s well being as it’s an understudied space. I wish to make it possible for cultural and gender-specific elements are thought of in any respect steps of the scientific analysis course of. My aim is to function a connector between the scientific and humanities communities, which may entail roles in analysis management, grant-making, and social influence initiatives that promote interdisciplinary approaches to well being challenges. I additionally purpose to increase these conversations globally, notably in areas the place ladies’s well being points are under-researched, reminiscent of within the International South.
Are there any findings out of your initiatives you’d like to spotlight?
One mission that I want to spotlight is my previous work on understanding the connection between intimate associate violence (IPV) and mind accidents, notably within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, throughout the pandemic lockdowns, many people–particularly ladies in abusive relationships–confronted intensified violence. Mind accidents attributable to IPV typically go unnoticed, and there may be vital stigma surrounding associate abuse, which may make it tough for ladies to come back ahead to hunt assist. My analysis highlighted how IPV and its neurological results turned a hidden “epidemic,” exacerbated by the pandemic’s isolation. These points have been hardly ever famous in in style media retailers and proceed to be closely stigmatized.
One other mission I labored on checked out Alzheimer’s Illness-related caregiving in India. In lots of cultural communities within the Indian subcontinent and past, the caregiving burden for members of the family with sicknesses like Alzheimer’s falls totally on ladies family members. I examined the challenges that ladies face as caregivers—typically taking good care of each growing older mother and father or in-laws whereas additionally caring for their very own kids. Intergenerational caregiving is usually the norm in lots of communities, and these “sandwich caregivers” expertise psychological and bodily pressure, but their experiences are hardly ever addressed in conventional Alzheimer’s analysis. I wished to know how ladies navigate these experiences and what the ripple results of carrying these obligations have been.
How do these initiatives match into the broader themes of your work?
Each initiatives highlighted how cultural and gender elements affect well being outcomes, particularly in under-researched areas like ladies’s caregiving roles and the intersection of IPV and neurological well being. These findings present how important it’s to combine cultural contexts and social science analysis into medical research. I’m dedicated to exploring these intersections additional to make sure that well being insurance policies and analysis higher mirror the lived realities of girls and marginalized teams.
The place can folks learn extra about your work?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chinmayi-balusu/
Web site: https://chinmayibalusu.com/