Dr. Beverly Ann Davenport
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
bad@unt.edu
(940) 565-2292

Beverly Davenport specializes in the anthropology and social epidemiology of chronic disease in the United States, focusing on race and class as determinants of health disparities.  Her most recent research project examined practices of hypertension management of San Francisco transit operators and offered a critique of the “stress” literature.  Other interests include the anthropology of work, urban anthropology, communication processes in medical care, medical professional socialization processes, and the anthropology of ‘beauty’ and body image.

Selected Consulting Projects

2001-2003 SolanoWORKS-WIC Nutrition Program, Health and Social Services Department, Solano County, California.  Dr. Davenport designed a program evaluation using qualitative research methods for a special WIC program for welfare-to-work mothers.  She trained nutritionists in basic principles of ethnographic research and writing, conducting monthly workshops to help them develop their ethnographic write-ups of their clients.  She provided an overall data analysis, wrote the executive summary, edited the ethnographic portraits written by the nutritionists and integrated them into a comprehensive final report produced for the Director of the Health and Social Services Department.  

Education

2004 Ph.D., Medical Anthropology, University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley

1980 M.S.P.H., Health Administration, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

1978 A.B, Anthropology, Harvard University

Selected Publications

2003, “’If I Have Issues, You Are There To Listen’:  An Evaluation of the SolanoWORKS WIC Nutrition Program,” with Solano County Health and Social Services Department.

2000, “Witnessing and the Medical Gaze: How Medical Students Learn to See at a Free Clinic for the Homeless,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 14(3):310-327.

Selected Presentations

2004 “Driving Driven:  Urban Transit Operators, Hypertension and Stress(ed) Management,” Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine Seminar Series, University of California, San Francisco.

2004 “Occupational Health and the Illusion of ‘Wellness’: A Case Study,” Society for Medical Anthropology and Society for Applied Anthropology Joint Conference, Dallas, TX.

2003 “My Job Makes Me Sick!: Discourses of Distress in Urban Transit Operators,” paper presented at the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment Fellowship Conference, Santa Barbara, California.

2003 “Becoming a Field Worker,” guest speaker, Anthropology 211a, (field methods class jointly offered by UCSF and UC Berkeley), Berkeley, California.

2002 “Hypertension: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You,” guest speaker, Communication Skills for Transit Employees class (Olivia Platford, instructor), City College of San Francisco.

2001 “Working with Hypertension,” keynote speaker, Peer Awards Banquet, Presidio Division, San Francisco Municipal Railway, San Francisco, California.

2001 “Woman Care Plus, Reducing Barriers to Care for Large Women,” panel moderator, California Conference on the Health of Black Women sponsored by the Black Women’s Health Project, Berkeley, California.