Main academic achievements

Groundwork for the anthropological study of pharmaceuticals 

With her colleagues Sjaak van der Geest and Susan Whyte, Anita Hardon spearheaded the anthropological study of pharmaceuticals, culminating in an article in the Annual Review of Anthropology (1996) and the seminal book The Social Lives of Medicines (2002). These publications laid the groundwork for the subsequent anthropological study of pharmaceuticals, which until then had received scant attention.

Insights in technologies and medicines

Over the past decade, she has further been engaged in ambitious multi-level and multi-sited ethnographies on immunization, new sexual and reproductive technologies and AIDS medicines. Her research has generated important ethnographic insights on the appropriation of these technologies in diverse social-cultural settings, their efficacy in everyday life, the role of social movements in their design, and the dynamics of care and policy-making in their provision.

Social and academic impact

She makes communicating research findings to patient advocates, policy-makers, and public health researchers and practitioners a priority. This has led to changes in health policies, documentaries on the ‘lived effects’ of medicines, and favourable reviews of her work in high impact medical journals such as The Lancet (1988 and 2005) and Nature (2004). Each of her collaborative ethnographies involved several scientific grants and produced cutting-edge medical anthropological understandings, reflected in publications in top social science and public health journals (with a Hirsch index of 25, and over 2800 citations to her work).

Medicines and the world's poor

Starting in 1987, her focus was on the ‘Global Diffusion of Modern Pharmaceuticals in Primary Health Care’. Building on her PhD research on self-medication in an urban slum in the Philippines, Hardon subsequently pursued comparative research in Uganda and Pakistan, highlighting how the effects of medicines were culturally re-interpreted and how self-care using modern pharmaceuticals was pervasive among the world’s poor.

Gender, reproductive health and population policies 

From 1992, she developed and implemented a multi-country program on ‘Gender, Reproductive Health and Population Policies’, conducted in ten countries around Europe, Africa, Asia and South-America, and funded by the EU Fifth Framework Programme and the Dutch ministry for Foreign Affairs.

In two articles in Social Science and Medicine (1992 and 2006) and in several books, she describes how women’s health advocates and consumers have influenced product design. Whereas she aligned herself with the poor who lacked access to decent health care, she engaged in reflexive dialogue with both the users and designers of technologies, contributing to the creation of institutional mechanisms through which users could exert more influence on design processes.

AIDS medicines in resource poor settings 

When large-scale AIDS medicines programs were established in 2004, she developed the ‘AIDS Medicines in Resource Poor Settings’ research program, engaging 12 PhD students in Asia and Africa and 2 post- docs. The early results were presented in a seminal 2007 article in AIDS Care, which revealed that transportation costs and waiting times were key barriers to access for the poor in Africa.

The program generated new insights on how social forms travel with technologies to diverse settings, changing care arrangements and in situ and how social and cultural factors influence the (appropriate use) of AIDS medicines.

The findings were published in four agenda-setting special issues:

• Medical Anthropology published two special issues: AIDS medicines in East African Health Institutions which Anita Hardon edited with Hansjoerg Dilger of the University of Berlin (2011), and Why HIV remains exceptional in the Age of Treatment (2014)
• Culture, Health and Sexuality published Secrecy as embodied practice: beyond the confessional imperative (2014) which she edited with Deborah Posel of the University of Cape Town
• Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS published the special issue Disclosure in Times of ART: A relational analysis of social practices (2013) which she edited with Alice Desclaux of Institute de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD) and Joe Lugalla of the University of New Hampshire

Chemical Youth

In 2012 she was awarded an ERC advanced grant for her current multi-sited ‘Chemical Youth’ project. This comparative ethnography aims to understand what chemical and pharmaceutical substances, and not only illicit narcotics, ‘do’ for youths. How are chemicals a part of their everyday lives? What role do they play in calming their fears or in achieving their dreams and aspirations? How can we understand the ways in which chemicals affect their bodies and minds?

To answer these questions she draws on her past work on the social lives of pharmaceuticals, and combines research repertoires from various disciplines - most notably medical anthropology, science and technology studies and youth studies. The social aim is to learn how, beyond policing and regulating transgressions, it will be possible to set up programs and interactive websites that support youth.

Intensive guidance to young researchers

Over the course of these research programs, she has provided intensive guidance to young researchers, engaging them in the joint writing of books and articles. She has organized PhD workshops with international colleagues and has supervised over 19 PhD students to successful completion. Many of Hardon’s former PhD students now have prominent positions in academic institutions.  Her work has further had an impact on the field of global health through the development of innovative research frameworks and methodologies. Applied Health Research: Anthropology of Health and Health Care (2001) is now used in numerous teaching centres, and the Manual How to investigate the use of drug use by consumers (WHO 2004), has been used in over 35 countries worldwide. Together with Lenore Manderson and Liz Cartwright has been awarded a contract by Routledge for a Medical Anthropology handbook (Vital Signs, to be published in 2015).

Technical advisor for the World Health Organization

The social impact of her studies has been leveraged through her role as technical advisor for the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and health-related non-governmental organizations, while a popular article written for Health Action International led to changes in how the Global Alliance for Vaccination implemented its programs. The article ‘Hunger, waiting time and transport costs: Time to confront challenges to ART adherence in Africa’ that Anita Hardon and co-authors (many of whom front-line health workers in Africa) wrote in 2007 became one of the three most cited AIDS Care articles from 2003-2012.

Health, Care and the Body research program

Under her leadership, the Health, Care and the Body research program at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) has become known as the European leader in medical anthropology and global health.  The program has been awarded a 8 prestigious grants of the European Research Council (totalling 18 million Euro’s external funding) in the past five years. The University of Amsterdam has recognized Global Health as one of its ten priority research areas.

Scientific Director of the AISSR

Between 2001 and 2014 Anita Hardon has been the Scientific Director of the AISSR, where she built on the institute’s traditions of scholarship to generate new internationally recognized cross-disciplinary synergies. The AISSR employs 200 researchers and was recognized in 2011 and 2013 by Times Higher Education as the leading centre for the social sciences in continental Europe. 

• Website Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR)

• Download complete CV of Anita Hardon

For her PhD research Hardon did extensive anthropological fieldwork on self care in urban poor communities in Manila. Since, she has been involved in comparative studies of health care arrangements, focusing on the global diffusion of contraceptive technologies and modern pharmaceuticals in primary health and family planning programs, on programs to limit the transmission of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases and on global efforts to immunize the world's children. The studies involve anthropological fieldwork in different socio-cultural settings, at global, national and local levels of health care usually by a team of researchers.

Hardon contributes to the development of research frameworks/methodologies, fieldwork/guidance of researchers,and   comparative analysis ofresults. Based on her expertise she has also contributed to evaluations of global health programs for external agencies. The following gives an overview of her main research contributions:

• Project leader Multi-country African study on Testing and Counseling for HIV (MATCH) . In collaboration with WHO, with support from NIH, 2007-2012.
• Project leader Learning by doing: enhancing treatment literacy and addressing sexual and reproductive health of PLWA in Eastern Africa . In Collaboration with ITM, KIT, CF with support from Aids Fonds, 2007-2010.
• Director IS-Academy HIV-AIDS , Research-Policy partnership program withthe Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2005-2009.
• Project leader Preventing mother to child transmission in Vietnam and Indonesia: diverging care logics . In collaboration with Medical Committee Netherlands Vietnam (MCNV) and Yayasan Pelitu Ilmu (YPI), with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2005-2008.
• Program director Aids Medicines in Resource Poor Settings Research Programme, conducted by the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, support from AIDS fonds, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Studies conductedfrom 2005 onwards in Vietnam, Indonesia, Uganda, South Africa, Mali and Burkina Faso.
• Advisor, collaborative study on ARV adherence , funded by WHO-EDM, conducted in Uganda, Tanzania and Botswana, 2004-2005.
• Program director. Diversity among patients in medical practice. Challenges and implications for clinical research. In collaboration with the Amsterdam Medical Center, commissioned by ZonMw, 2004-2005.
• Principal investigator Comparative assessment of public-private interactions to increase access to HIV-AIDS medicines . Country studies in Ghana, Kenya, Peru, Moldova, Vietnam and Thailand. Funded by DANIDA. Implemented by Health Action International, 2004-2006.
• Senior researcher/advisor Evaluation ten-years international health/nutrition/population development aid , research grant from the Policy and   Operations EvaluationDepartment,Netherlands Ministry of ForeignAffairs (2000/1).
• Principal investigator Review of EC-support to HIV/AIDS/STD projects in Asia under B76211 for South and South-east Asia,1998-1999, Research Grant European Commission, IHS-TAN (1998-1999).
• Senior Researcher Quality of Care in Reproductive Health , Concerted Action (coordinated by the International Center for Reproductive Health, University of Ghent), specifically a critical appraisal of the integration of STI/HIV prevention and control in PHC,research grant from the European Commission, DG XII program for scientific collaboration, 1998-2001.
• Principal Researcher   Donor assistance in increasing access to HIV-related drugs , research grant from the World Health Organization, Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy Department and UNAIDS (1999-2000).
• Researcher joint   program Gender and women's sexual and reproductive practices and health care in Metropolitan Cape Town , implemented by the Department of Anthropology and Sociology of the University of the Western Cape and the Medical Anthropology Unit, research grant from the South Africa-Netherlands Research Program on Alternatives in Development (1998-2000).
• Researcher: Biographies of the contraceptive pill in the Netherlands and the Philippines. Sub-project of themulti-country study "Gender, Reproductive Health, and Population Policies" with support from ASSR (1996-1999).
• Scientific projectleader " Global Programming and Technology Development ", part of the Social Science and Immunization project (1995-1998), research grant from DGIS and DANIDA, in cooparation with Institute for Health Policy Studies, Universtity of California; Center for Development Economics, Dehli School of Economics; de La Salle University, Philippines, 1994 - 1999.
• Scientific project leader Community DrugUseIntervention Study in Uganda, carried out by Makerere Institute for Social Research with Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, research grant from DANIDA, 1996 - 2000.
• Principal investigator Acceptation of vaccination among migrants in the Netherlands . Research grant: the Dutch Ministry VWS (1996-1998).
• Senior researcher. Quality of Care and adherence to reproductive rights in family planning programs with the Women's Health Action Foundation, Am-sterdam (1993-1996), research grant by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands.
• International scientific project leader : multi-country study Gender, Reproductive Health, and Population Policies , research grant from the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 1992 to present. Conducted in the Netherlands, the Philippines, India, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil (1993- 2001).
• International research-coordinator : Collaborative Project on Community Drug Use , in cooperation with Community Medicine Development Foundation (COMMED), the Philippines; Aga Khan Health Services, Pakistan;   Makerere Institute for Social Research (Uganda), Department of Anthropology, the University of Copenhagen and the Royal Tropical Institute, research grant from the European Commission, DG XII for Scientific cooperation, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNICEF, WHO, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1991 to 1997.
• Project-coordinator: Sustainability of Primary Health Care in Africa: Community Financing and Community Participation , for Health Action International, in cooperation with UNICEF and OXFAM: feasibility study and preparation   ofa StudyConference in Sierre Leone. Research grantsfrom the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs(Department of Development Cooperation), the British Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), UNICEF, OXFAM and Save the Children Fund, 1989-1990.
• Consultant to the Royal Tropical Institute for the Evaluation of WHO's Action Programme on Essential Drugs . January - December l990, specific responsibility for the assessment of DAP's communication strategy, and operational research.
• PhD researcher: Medicines, self-care and the poor in Manila , for the Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, with the Community BasedHealth Programs in the Philippines (l985 - l989).
• Researcher : Cognitive change in clinical research on Chronic Non- Specific Lung Diseases . Under Supervision of Drs. A. Hiddinga. Department of Science Dynamics, University of Amterdam (1984 -1985).
• Researcher : Nutrition and infectious diseases of pre-schoolchildren in rural communities in the Philippines . Under supervision of Dr. J. Kusin, Deparment of Nutrition, Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam and Human Ecology Institute, University of the Philippines at Los Banos (l982 - l983).

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