Type 2 Diabetes and Mental Health

We study the relationships between type 2 diabetes, women’s gendered social roles, and mental health in North India. We measure people’s beliefs, behaviors, and biological states to obtain a holistic picture of how illness states arise from and respond to social conditions, with a particular focus on women’s roles and relationships within their families. This work involves collaborations with Dr. S.V. Madhu, members of the Research Society for the Study of Diabetes in India, and Emily Mendenhall at Georgetown University.

Some key findings of the research:

Diabetes is an important area of study for medical anthropology and for global health.
Women in India use locally specific language to discuss distress in non-stigmatizing terms.
Women with diabetes had levels of depression and anxiety symptoms that were no different from their non-diabetic peers.
Women with diabetes had sub-optimal blood sugar, but they managed to maintain involvement in important gendered tasks in their lives, such as domestic labor and emotional management of the family.
Women’s ability to remain involved in important gender-specific social roles may buffer their mental health, allowing them to avoid depression and anxiety even though their diabetes markers were suboptimal.
Those tradeoffs sometimes came at a cost for female-female relationships within families.
More generally, this points to the importance of gendered social roles for health and wellbeing.

Hear Dr. Weaver read from and discuss her book on the research on an episode of the podcast Sausage of Science.

Book cover Sugar and Tension: Diabetes and Gender in Modern India

The book cover of Sugar and Tension, Dr. Weaver’s book highlighting the research. Hear more at this link https://podtail.com/podcast/sausage-of-science/sos-83-an-excerpt-with-dr-lesley-jo-weaver/

Dr. Weaver presenting research results.

Dr. Weaver Checking a research participant’s blood sugar.

Coping Strategies for Distress

We also study North and South Indian women’s coping strategies for distress, and the words, phrases, and syndromes they use to talk about distress in everyday contexts. This colloquial language, referred to as idioms of distress, can help us better address common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety in places where psychiatric care is either limited or highly stigmatized. This work is an ongoing collaboration with the Public Health research Institute of India.

Some key findings of this research:

Women frequently use the English term “tension” to refer to distress. This term indexes a host of states and a range of severity, and can be considered a distinct syndrome. The term is found all over South Asia.
There are many other ways women express distress in South India that may be culturally specific.
Women sometimes used culturally important concepts like concerns about hair loss as a way to talk about distress.
Women are aware of the psychiatric services available in their communities, but they are reluctant to engage with them for a range of reasons, including lack of cultural relevance, stigma, and accessibility issues.
Women employ a wide range of coping strategies for distress, many of which align closely with best practices in clinical psychology and psychiatry.

Dr. Weaver has discussed this research with Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry.

Dr. Weaver presenting research results at a medical school in Mysore.

A discussion group with women in Mysore focusing on distress.