As the COVID-19 virus swept across the nation in spring 2020, infection and hospitalization rates in states like West Virginia remained relatively low. By that July, each of Appalachia’s 423 counties had recorded confirmed cases. The coronavirus pandemic has taken an enormous toll on the health of individuals and institutions throughout the region—a stark reminder that even isolated rural populations are subject to historical, biological, ecological, and geographical factors that have continually created epidemics over the past millennia.
In Appalachian Epidemics: From Smallpox to COVID-19, scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds assess two centuries of public health emergencies and the subsequent responses. This volume peers into the trans–Appalachian South’s experience with illness, challenging the misconception that rurality provides protection against maladies. In addition to surveying the impact of influenza, polio, and Lyme disease outbreaks, Appalachian Epidemics addresses the less-understood social determinants of health. The effects of the opioid crisis and industrial coal mining complicate the definition of disease and illuminate avenues for responding to future public health threats.
From the significance of regional stereotypes to the spread of misinformation and the impact of racism and poverty on public health policy, Appalachian Epidemics makes clear that many of the natural, political, and socioeconomic forces currently shaping the region’s experiences with COVID-19 and other crises have historical antecedents.
Tabella dei contenuti
Foreword, by Steven F. Stoll
Introduction, by Christopher M. White and Kevin T. Barksdale
1. Sick from the Start: The Cherokees’ Trail of Tears, May-September 1838, by Paul Kelton
2. The Plagues of War: Human and Animal Diseases that Shaped Southern Appalachia during the Civil War Era, by Erin Stewart Mauldin
3. The 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic: Its Toll on the Trans-Appalachian South, by Deanne Love Stephens
4. ‘Spanish’ Influenza in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia: One Region’s Experience, by Raymond Feierabend, Randy Wykoff, and Ron R. Roach
5. A Piedmont Pandemic: Race, Class, and Influenza in Athens, Georgia 1918-19, by Brian Allen Drake
6. Regional Development and the Control of Nature: The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Malaria Control Program, by Eric D. Carter
7. Polio in the Mountains: How Outbreaks Paralyzed Appalachian Communities and How They Adapted, by Timothy Jacob Spraker
8. The Appalachian Mountaintop Mining Epidemic, by Michael S. Hendryx
9. The Continued Emergence of Lyme Disease in Appalachia, by Korine N. Kolivras
10. Small Bite, Big Impact: The Insect that Shapes History, by Nicole Fijman
11. Black Lung: An Industrial Epidemic, by Patrick C. Mc Ginley
12. State Responses to Drug Use and Parenting in Appalachian Kentucky, by Lesly-Marie Buer
Contributors
Circa l’autore
Kevin T. Barksdale is professor of American history at Marshall University. A specialist in Appalachian history and culture, he is the author of The Lost State of Franklin: America’s First Secession.
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