Marcia C. Inhorn facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Marcia C. Inhorn
Inhorn at Yale University.
Born	1957
Nationality	American
Education	PhD, MPH
Alma mater	UC Berkeley
Employer	Yale University University of Michigan
Title	William K. Lanman Jr. professor
Board member of	Elected Fellow, Society for Applied Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2007. Chair, Council on Middle East Studies, Yale University, 2008 - 2011. 2019- present. Founding Editor, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies
Spouse(s)	Kirk Hooks
Children	Carl & Justine
Awards	Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Middle East Anthropology, 2015. JMEWS Book Award for The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East, Association of Middle East Women's Studies, Middle East Studies Association, 2014 Diana Forsythe Prize for Outstanding Feminist Anthropological Research on Work, Science, and Technology, 2007. Eileen Basker Prize award for

Marcia Claire Inhorn is a professor and a special kind of scientist called a medical anthropologist. This means she studies how people's culture, society, and beliefs affect their health. She teaches at Yale University and is an expert on health and family life in the Middle East.

Professor Inhorn is famous for her research on infertility, which is when people have difficulty having children. She has studied how new medical treatments, called assisted reproductive technologies (or ART), change people's lives. She has done research in countries like Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. She also wrote a book about why some women in the United States choose to freeze their eggs.

What Does a Medical Anthropologist Do?

A medical anthropologist like Marcia Inhorn travels to different places to understand how people think about health and sickness. Instead of just looking at diseases in a lab, she talks to people and lives in their communities. This helps her learn about their daily lives, their beliefs, and their challenges.

Her work helps doctors and scientists understand that health is not just about biology. It is also about culture, religion, and personal experiences. By studying these things, she helps find better ways to support people's health around the world.

Research Around the World

Professor Inhorn has traveled to many places to learn about families and health. Her work has been supported by important groups like the National Science Foundation.

Studying Families in Egypt

In the late 1980s, Professor Inhorn went to Egypt to study a new medical technology called IVF. IVF, which stands for in-vitro fertilization, is a way to help people who are struggling to have a baby. She was one of the first scientists to study how this technology was used outside of Europe and America.

She learned that for Egyptians, having children is very important for family and community life. She wrote three books about her findings. In these books, she explained how people's religious and cultural beliefs shaped how they used IVF. She also found that even when the technology was available, not everyone could easily use it because of cost or other challenges.

Learning About Men's Health in Lebanon

Professor Inhorn later did research in Lebanon, where she focused on men's health. She wanted to challenge old stereotypes about men in the Middle East. She wrote a book called The New Arab Man, where she shared the stories of hundreds of men from different backgrounds.

She discovered that many men were thinking in new ways about family and their roles as husbands and fathers. Her book showed that men also face challenges with infertility and use medical technology to help start their families. This important work won awards for helping people better understand modern life in the Middle East.

Medical Travel in the United Arab Emirates

Next, Professor Inhorn studied the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai has become a major center for medical care, with people traveling there from all over the world for treatment. This is sometimes called "medical tourism."

She studied people from 50 different countries who came to Dubai for IVF. Many came because these treatments were not available or were too expensive in their home countries. Professor Inhorn felt that "tourism" was not the right word for these difficult journeys. She suggested the term "reprotravel" to better describe what these families go through.

Helping Arab Refugees in America

Professor Inhorn also did a five-year study in Detroit, Michigan, which has a large Arab-American community. She focused on refugees, especially from Iraq, who came to America to escape war.

She found that many refugees suffered from health problems, including infertility, that were sometimes caused by the wars in their home countries. When they arrived in America, it was often very hard for them to get the expensive medical care they needed. Her book on this topic, America's Arab Refugees, explains these challenges and argues that more should be done to help refugees who have lost so much.

Why Women Freeze Their Eggs in the United States

More recently, Professor Inhorn has studied a technology called egg freezing. This allows women to save their eggs when they are younger to use them to have children later in life. Many people thought women did this to focus on their careers.

However, after interviewing 150 women, Professor Inhorn found a different reason. Most women said they were freezing their eggs because they had not yet found the right partner to start a family with. Her research showed that this is a growing trend around the world and has been featured in many news stories and documentaries.

Sharing Her Knowledge

Besides writing her own books, Marcia Inhorn helps other experts share their work. She started a magazine called the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (JMEWS). She is also an editor for other scientific journals and book series about health, family, and reproduction. Through her work, she continues to help people all over the world understand the connection between culture and health.