Written as a postscript to my dissertation: July 18, 2004

There is a dearth of literature that addresses the effect of participation in international field study on the health of resident researchers. Ethnographic researchers, such as Margaret Mead, her colleagues and predecessors, opened the door to the possibility of academics leaving their institutions to experience firsthand life in their research community. While anthropologists continue to immerse themselves in foreign cultures as a means of gaining insight into the one they left behind, scientists of all disciplines have broadened their scope and are traveling around the world to investigate research questions that have the potential of addressing significant concerns. Given the time that it takes to seek funding, research is often started in the midst of unforeseen circumstances, such as famine, flooding, or war. Exposure to extreme environments, or even seemingly ordinary ones for an extended period of time has the potential to cause morbidity, even mortality. Researchers are not immune to the environmental influences that affect their study participants. The vast majority is impacted at some level; however, there appears to be an unspoken code that encourages scientists to report only the science. What happens when the science becomes personal?

Between December 2000 and May 2003 I conducted my research in Nepal. While I was in the country, the royal family was massacred, the civil insurgency between the government and Maoists intensified, the government declared a state of emergency, Nepalis were kidnapped and executed, the Maoists destroyed much of the surrounding infrastructure by bombing telephone towers, hydroelectric plants, and vehicles on the main thru-fare, and the country experienced the heaviest rains it had seen in the previous 20 years. Since I left Nepal, the violence has continued to intensify and the country has experienced heavier rains. While I was living in Sarlahi District, there was a rash of murders and/or suicides among women living in one community, children began playing ‘government and Maoists’ (similar to the cowboys and Indians game that American children play), and the effects of the civil insurgency described above were experienced at a local level.

Personally, I experienced malnutrition, parasitic infection, and the stress of not knowing whether I would need to evacuate any one of my three homes at a moment’s notice. As a result of eating the local cuisine, I contracted anemia, diarrheal illness, and was febrile for months on end. Between November 2001 and April 2004, at least one of three parasites (giardia, amoebic dyssentary, or blastocyst hominis) inhabited my body. I had guns pointed at my head as our project vehicle pulled up beside military checkpoints on the road between Sarlahi District and Kathmandu, the capital or military vehicles pulled in front of my bike in traffic and I suddenly found myself facing the open end of six to ten rifles that were pointed out the back of the truck. At the beginning of one of the 13- to 16-hour roundtrip weekly excursions I took to Kathmandu in order to seek refuge from the intense isolation I felt in the project site, I witnessed the aftermath of a horrific traffic accident that continues to haunt me today. When I completed my data collection, I was fortunate to be able to return to a country that possesses as many resources as the United States, where I had access to nutritional supplements and professionals equipped to help me heal both my mind and body.

What strikes me about my sojourn in Nepal is that everything I experienced, witnessed, was in the presence of Nepalis. Together we endured nightly curfews, the inconvenience of nationwide political strikes that did not allow us to work or travel, and the ever-present fear that permeates life in a country rife with civil conflict. It has taken a year for me to achieve optimal health, be able to work effectively, and to reach a point where I no longer see imaginary guns pointed at me or experience regular panic attacks triggered by something as common as violence in a movie or road kill. I am not a weak individual. If the two years I lived in Nepal had such a profound impact on my health and general well-being, how is life amidst such stressful conditions affecting Nepalis who continue to live in their indigenous environment?

For the past year, I have worked on characterizing the nutritional status and development of Nepali children less than two years of age. I described anemia, iron-deficiency, motor delays, and the effect of supplementation with iron-folate and zinc on information processing among these children, while I worked through my own nutritional deficiencies, injuries, and change in cognitive functioning as a result of receiving nutritional supplementation. Further research on the effects of supplementation on the development of young Nepali children needs to be considered in order to clarify the association between iron-folate and zinc supplementation on the development of locomotion and cognitive processes. We know maternal depression and poverty impact child development. How is the present socio-political environment impacting the health and well being of all Nepalis? What are the implications of an entire nation experiencing despair, depression, and anxiety? Because researchers are choosing to live in and travel in and out of the communities in which they are conducting their research, they have a responsibility to raise the awareness of policy makers to the broader implications of the effect of environmental factors on the health and well-being of their research subjects. This is a task that will mostly likely cause them to reach beyond their research domain, but is also one that has the potential to have a profound impact on society as a whole.