Health Beyond the Blog: Rachel Hall-Clifford and “Underbelly”

In the Health Storytelling series, Rachel Hall-Clifford, PhD discusses her new book on global health and childhood illness

by Alexa Morales

In the first episode of the new season of Health Storytelling, a livestream series of interviews conducted by journalist and senior fellow Maryn McKenna, medical anthropologist Rachel Hall-Clifford, PhD spoke about the importance of addressing diarrheal disease in children. The interview served as the launch of her new book Underbelly: Childhood Diarrhea and the Hidden Local Realities of Global Health (MIT Press, May 2024).

Hall-Clifford has carried out global health initiatives in Guatemala since 2005, where, as she said in the interview, “the stars just sort of aligned” for her to conduct research there. In Guatemala, she encountered both natural beauty and tight-knit community, reminding her of her hometown in East Tennessee. She has also witnessed many challenges that people living in rural areas have endured, especially the indigenous Mayan community. These hardships include inadequate sewage and unsafe water, which underscore the prevalence of diarrheal diseases in children living in Guatemala. This amplifies malnutrition and disrupts children’s growth and development.

Hall-Clifford and her team promote community health in Guatemala by working alongside local partners through a collaborative approach they have dubbed “co-design.” For diarrheal diseases, for example, the team has partnered with Eco Filtro, a Guatemalan social enterprise that distributes water filters.

Along with stories from this and other partnerships, Hall-Clifford’s book chronicles the health-seeking behaviors of women in these Mayan communities. As the central caregivers in their households, they are key stakeholders in these interventions, as Guatemalan mothers often experience social pressures when their children become sick.

Together, both Hall-Clifford and Mayan mothers in Guatemala demonstrate the essential role women play in community interventions. As Hall-Clifford stated, “global health is led by men but delivered by women.”

The Health Storytelling Author Q&A series continues at 7pm on Oct. 9 with journalist Lynne Peeples discussing her new book, The Inner Clock: Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms (Riverhead Books, September 2024). To attend that and future events, RSVP here.