| RZ-51759-14 | Research Programs: Collaborative Research | Columbia University | Relocating Heart Disease in the Tropics: Race, Risk, and Modernization in Post-Independence India | 10/1/2014 - 12/31/2018 | $286,712.00 | Kavita | | Sivaramakrishnan | David | S. | Jones | Columbia University | New York | NY | 10027-7922 | USA | 2014 | South Asian History | Collaborative Research | Research Programs | 286712 | 0 | 286712 | 0 | Research culminating in the writing of a book and several articles examining the history of medical responses to heart disease in India. (36 months)
This project explores how heart disease came to be seen as a problem in India in the decades after its independence in 1947 by situating it within the politics of decolonization and the interactions between international and national experts as they shaped a new, global profession. It explores a unique paradox, of burgeoning interest in heart disease and cardiac technology in the 1940 and 1950s at a time when India's overwhelming epidemiological burden still stemmed from infectious diseases and malnutrition. Our research will reveal: (1) how and why cardiology and cardiac surgery first gained footholds at medical institutions in India; (2) how the two specialties were then taken up as an important component of India's national health agenda; (3) how international networks of medical training and exchange fostered these developments amid the complexity of Cold War politics; and (4) the consequences of this history for patients and physicians who grapple with heart disease in India. |