As Their Numbers Grow, Covid-19 “Long Haulers” Stump Experts

Re:As Their Numbers Grow, Covid-19 “Long Haulers” Stump Experts by dv_dt on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:19PM (#24591404)

It seems like dismissing their symptoms without specifically identifying why they feel the way they do is as much as a mistake as insisting that there is a specific disease when the tests say otherwise. There must be a more scientific study of large scale public health - what field is that, Epidemiology? Is there also some form of medical Anthropology?

On a population scale, one rarely has "adequate control groups" it would seem to me. What is the process of going from anecdotes to identifying a distinct population with problem to work on in epidemiology? We can't just shrug and say, it must be mistaken because there's no control group.

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Re:As Their Numbers Grow, Covid-19 “Long Haulers” Stump Experts by legerdemain on Friday September 25, 2020 @05:32PM (#24594325)

Medical anthropology is definitely a thing. It studies the cultural aspects of medicine: popular beliefs about the nature of health and sickness, attitudes toward treatment, the relationship between doctors and patients, etc. Given the complicated and often counterproductive beliefs about disease control in the US today, it feels like a pretty important field.

A popular science title from this area is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, about the relationship between a Hmong family with an epileptic child and their doctors. I think it's often assigned reading for students in the medical professions.

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