Heather Howard
Biographic Data
| ID | 114028 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heather Howard |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heather |
| FAMILY NAME | Howard |
| SIGNATURE | HOWARD H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6705-1377 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 67 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
A Photovoice Study of Self-Advocacy Among Youth in Residential Foster Care
Prepregnancy Health Care Engagement Among American Indian and Alaska Native People Before and After the Affordable Care Act
Background: Despite including several provisions focused on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people, few studies look at the Affordable Care Act (ACA)'s potential impact among AI/AN birth givers, a group that experiences a disproportionate burden of adverse pregnancy outcomes. While ACA repeal conversations are ongoing, our objective was to examine changes, and equity in changes, in health care interactions before and after the ACA betwe…
Peer work and recovery
The aim of the study was to explore how recovery is facilitated by examining components of the relationship between peer workers and adults impacted by substance use disorder and incarceration. Semistructured, in-person interviews were conducted with two groups: 8 persons active in a substance use program and 4 peer workers. The participants were asked how the relationship impacted recovery and obtaining housing. A reflexive thematic analyses was…
Stories and reflections on gikinawaabi
Indigenous Knowledge can inform the field of early childhood development. • The study team used participatory and Indigenous methodological approaches. • The study team included Michigan-based researchers, administrators from Indigenous early childhood programs, and Indigenous community members. • Using PhotoVoice, the team documented that traditional practices and relationships in Michigan Indigenous families are often shared with children throu…
Reducing the Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic Using Meaning-Based Coping Strategies
This study explored how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Karen, Latinx, and Somali immigrants/refugees in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and how they searched and made meaning of the situation. In-depth interviews were conducted with 32 adults drawn from community networks. Results show that the pandemic negatively affected various aspects of immigrant/refugee lives. Participants attempted to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by e…
Now I Have My Own Key”
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (2020) reported 85% of the U.S. prison population had a substance use disorder (SUD) or was incarcerated for drug-use crimes. Applying Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, Substance Use Program funds, the Palm Beach County Office of Behavioral Health, and SUDs developed a comprehensive person-centered, recovery-oriented approach. This mixed-methods study ( N = 36) examined how social capital, housing stability, an…
Teaching social work students the influence of explicit and implicit bias
The profession of social work is deeply rooted in teaching Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) students the impact of social injustice and the skills required to advocate for equity and equality. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) competencies embedded in social work curricula are specifically designed to assure students recognize that biases, explicit or implicit, by groups, government, or organizations might perpetuate social injustice. Howe…
Preparing students for the profession
Social work educators are tasked with students to incorporate into practice the skills of engaging diversity and difference, advancing human rights and challenging social injustice. Students are asked to engage with concepts and practices that confront the status quo of institutionalized oppression. Yet, students may not be exposed to examination of the ways in which social work practitioners may unintentionally recreate and reinforce hierarchies…
Hard to succeed
Knowledge and perceptions of BRCA1/2 genetic testing and needs of diverse women with a personal or family history of breast cancer in South Florida
Lived Experiences and Life Satisfaction of ChildFree Women in Late Life
The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the overall life satisfaction of older adult women who have not had children. We explore the following questions: (1) What is the overall sense of life satisfaction of childfree women over 65 years of age? (2) What is the lived experience of being a childfree woman in U.S. society? and (3) How does being childfree inform women’s overall life satisfaction? Using a phenomenological res…
Support for Mothers Who Are Incarcerated
History, Truth, and Reconciliation in Settler Health Care
Reflexivity, Ethics, and Divergent Perspectives
Using classroom vignettes, this article portrays the experiences of four White social work educators with minority-view inclusion and conflict management that is a result of divergent perspectives in the classroom. The use of reflexivity is explored as a strategy for understanding educators' biases and assumptions in teaching. In addition, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics is applied as it refers to helping social w…
Disaggregating diabetes
Interest in disaggregating diabetes into numerous subtypes is growing as patients and providers recognize the limitations of standard diabetes typologies. As anthropologists, we draw attention to how 'subtyping' may reduce stigma derived from the connection between obesity and 'type 2 diabetes'. We highlight the complexities that drive diabetes and argue that an exclusive or dominant focus on diet and obesity obfuscates other underlying risks. Ye…
Corporate Logic in Clinical Care
As large corporations come to dominate U.S. health care, clinical medicine is increasingly market-driven and governed by business principles. We examine ways in which health insurers and health care systems are transforming the goals and means of clinical practice. Based on ethnographic research of diabetes management in a large health care system, we argue that together these organizations redefine clinical care in terms that prioritize financia…
Racialized Risk in Clinical Care
Racial/ethnic identity is contingent and arbitrary, yet it is commonly used to evaluate disease risk and treatment response. Drawing on open-ended interviews with patients and clinicians in two US clinics, we explore how racialized risk is conceptualized and how it impacts patient care and experience. We found that racial/ethnic risk was a common but poorly defined construct for both patients and clinicians, who intermingled concepts of genetics,…
Settler Colonial Biogovernance and the Logic of a Surgical Cure for Diabetes
Electronic Health Records and the Disappearing Patient
With rapid consolidation of American medicine into large-scale corporations, corporate strategies are coming to the forefront in health care delivery, requiring a dramatic increase in the amount and detail of documentation, implemented through use of electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs are structured to prioritize the interests of a myriad of political and corporate stakeholders, resulting in a complex, multi-layered, and cumbersome health rec…
Care Managers and Knowledge Shift in Primary Care Patient-Centered Medical Home Transformation
Primary care practices across the United States are implementing a new model of care, the patient-centered medical home (PCMH), in an effort to improve care to patients and, consequently, control health care costs. The addition of care managers is a key aspect of PCMH implementation with important implications for the production and reproduction of authoritative knowledge in primary care. Redistribution of patient interaction from the primary car…
From collection to community to collections again
First Story Toronto - a community organization dedicated to the Indigenous histories of Toronto, Canada - is steward to a collection of items mostly made and collected during the 20th century. With origins in the Anglican Church Women, the collection reflects a time when policies and actions of the state and churches internalized colonial processes within Canada. Yet the donation of the ACW material to a Native woman and housing advocate in 1976 …
Reducing Stigma
Opioid use during pregnancy is increasing. Little is known from the maternal perspective about pregnancy and opioid dependence. This qualitative study was undertaken to examine the experiences of opioid-dependent women during their prenatal and early postpartum care. Within a stigma theoretical framework, a series of group interviews elicited the shared experiences of 20 self-identified postpartum women who used opioids during their pregnancy. Th…
Politics of Culture in Urban Indigenous Community-Based Diabetes Programs
This article examines community-based approaches to the prevention and management of diabetes in the indigenous urban community of Toronto. A critical perspective of the concept of cultural capital in health promotion is provided to move beyond a functional representation of culture in addressing health inequalities and the production of health. Community-based programs are contextualized within the historical, cultural, and social relations of i…
Canadian Residential Schools and Urban Indigenous Knowledge Production about Diabetes
The construction of illness as an inscription on the body of colonization figures importantly among Indigenous community-based service and health care providers. While residential schools and diabetes have both been characterized as products of colonization, little work has been done to examine how they are connected to and informative for health provider practice. The research data presented in this article come from a collaborative urban Indige…
Weaving Worlds Directed by Bennie Klain
Electronic Health Records and the Disappearing Patient
With rapid consolidation of American medicine into large-scale corporations, corporate strategies are coming to the forefront in health care delivery, requiring a dramatic increase in the amount and detail of documentation, implemented through use of electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs are structured to prioritize the interests of a myriad of political and corporate stakeholders, resulting in a complex, multi-layered, and cumbersome health rec…
Women's Class Strategies as Activism in Native Community Building in Toronto, 1950-1975
Another important decision was to come to Toronto and live with my grand-daughters. I was very concerned for them. They had finished High School and wanted to go to Business College. So I decided to come with them just for a year. That's all I intended. But then I became involved in the Indian community here in Toronto, and realized the bad image Indians have . . . and so I felt I just couldn't leave . . . It never occurred to me that I would run…
Corporate Logic in Clinical Care
As large corporations come to dominate U.S. health care, clinical medicine is increasingly market-driven and governed by business principles. We examine ways in which health insurers and health care systems are transforming the goals and means of clinical practice. Based on ethnographic research of diabetes management in a large health care system, we argue that together these organizations redefine clinical care in terms that prioritize financia…
Canadian Residential Schools and Urban Indigenous Knowledge Production about Diabetes
The construction of illness as an inscription on the body of colonization figures importantly among Indigenous community-based service and health care providers. While residential schools and diabetes have both been characterized as products of colonization, little work has been done to examine how they are connected to and informative for health provider practice. The research data presented in this article come from a collaborative urban Indige…
Racialized Risk in Clinical Care
Racial/ethnic identity is contingent and arbitrary, yet it is commonly used to evaluate disease risk and treatment response. Drawing on open-ended interviews with patients and clinicians in two US clinics, we explore how racialized risk is conceptualized and how it impacts patient care and experience. We found that racial/ethnic risk was a common but poorly defined construct for both patients and clinicians, who intermingled concepts of genetics,…
Settler Colonial Biogovernance and the Logic of a Surgical Cure for Diabetes
History, Truth, and Reconciliation in Settler Health Care
From collection to community to collections again
First Story Toronto - a community organization dedicated to the Indigenous histories of Toronto, Canada - is steward to a collection of items mostly made and collected during the 20th century. With origins in the Anglican Church Women, the collection reflects a time when policies and actions of the state and churches internalized colonial processes within Canada. Yet the donation of the ACW material to a Native woman and housing advocate in 1976 …
Stories and reflections on gikinawaabi
Indigenous Knowledge can inform the field of early childhood development. • The study team used participatory and Indigenous methodological approaches. • The study team included Michigan-based researchers, administrators from Indigenous early childhood programs, and Indigenous community members. • Using PhotoVoice, the team documented that traditional practices and relationships in Michigan Indigenous families are often shared with children throu…
Disaggregating diabetes
Interest in disaggregating diabetes into numerous subtypes is growing as patients and providers recognize the limitations of standard diabetes typologies. As anthropologists, we draw attention to how 'subtyping' may reduce stigma derived from the connection between obesity and 'type 2 diabetes'. We highlight the complexities that drive diabetes and argue that an exclusive or dominant focus on diet and obesity obfuscates other underlying risks. Ye…
Reducing the Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic Using Meaning-Based Coping Strategies
This study explored how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Karen, Latinx, and Somali immigrants/refugees in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and how they searched and made meaning of the situation. In-depth interviews were conducted with 32 adults drawn from community networks. Results show that the pandemic negatively affected various aspects of immigrant/refugee lives. Participants attempted to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by e…
Hard to succeed
Feminist Fields
Feminist Fields offers a rich and varied portrait of both the current work in feminist anthropology and future possibilities for dialogue between feminism and anthropology. Contributors to the book present critical analyses of a broad range of ethnographic topics: national feminism, gender and identity formation, cultural continuity, ethnographic authority, ethics and representation, empowerment and resistance. Here, young practitioners alongside…
Undisciplined Women
Feminist Fields
Rae Bridgman, Sally Cole and Heather Howard-Bobiwash (eds.), Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1999, 314 pages.Reviewer: Jasmin HabibFeminist Fields: Ethnographic Insights edited by Canadian anthropologists Rae Bridgman, Sally Cole and Heather Howard-Bobiwash and published by the independent Broadview Press presents essays about feminism, women in anthropology and feminist practices in the In the introduction, the editors write that they set out to …
Preface
Women's Class Strategies as Activism in Native Community Building in Toronto, 1950-1975
Another important decision was to come to Toronto and live with my grand-daughters. I was very concerned for them. They had finished High School and wanted to go to Business College. So I decided to come with them just for a year. That's all I intended. But then I became involved in the Indian community here in Toronto, and realized the bad image Indians have . . . and so I felt I just couldn't leave . . . It never occurred to me that I would run…
Decolonizing Methodologies
Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 1999. 224 pp. Cloth, $62.50, paper, $25.00
Keeping the Campfires Going
Weaving Worlds Directed by Bennie Klain
Politics of Culture in Urban Indigenous Community-Based Diabetes Programs
This article examines community-based approaches to the prevention and management of diabetes in the indigenous urban community of Toronto. A critical perspective of the concept of cultural capital in health promotion is provided to move beyond a functional representation of culture in addressing health inequalities and the production of health. Community-based programs are contextualized within the historical, cultural, and social relations of i…
Canadian Residential Schools and Urban Indigenous Knowledge Production about Diabetes
The construction of illness as an inscription on the body of colonization figures importantly among Indigenous community-based service and health care providers. While residential schools and diabetes have both been characterized as products of colonization, little work has been done to examine how they are connected to and informative for health provider practice. The research data presented in this article come from a collaborative urban Indige…
Reducing Stigma
Opioid use during pregnancy is increasing. Little is known from the maternal perspective about pregnancy and opioid dependence. This qualitative study was undertaken to examine the experiences of opioid-dependent women during their prenatal and early postpartum care. Within a stigma theoretical framework, a series of group interviews elicited the shared experiences of 20 self-identified postpartum women who used opioids during their pregnancy. Th…
Care Managers and Knowledge Shift in Primary Care Patient-Centered Medical Home Transformation
Primary care practices across the United States are implementing a new model of care, the patient-centered medical home (PCMH), in an effort to improve care to patients and, consequently, control health care costs. The addition of care managers is a key aspect of PCMH implementation with important implications for the production and reproduction of authoritative knowledge in primary care. Redistribution of patient interaction from the primary car…
From collection to community to collections again
First Story Toronto - a community organization dedicated to the Indigenous histories of Toronto, Canada - is steward to a collection of items mostly made and collected during the 20th century. With origins in the Anglican Church Women, the collection reflects a time when policies and actions of the state and churches internalized colonial processes within Canada. Yet the donation of the ACW material to a Native woman and housing advocate in 1976 …
Electronic Health Records and the Disappearing Patient
With rapid consolidation of American medicine into large-scale corporations, corporate strategies are coming to the forefront in health care delivery, requiring a dramatic increase in the amount and detail of documentation, implemented through use of electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs are structured to prioritize the interests of a myriad of political and corporate stakeholders, resulting in a complex, multi-layered, and cumbersome health rec…
Settler Colonial Biogovernance and the Logic of a Surgical Cure for Diabetes
Reflexivity, Ethics, and Divergent Perspectives
Using classroom vignettes, this article portrays the experiences of four White social work educators with minority-view inclusion and conflict management that is a result of divergent perspectives in the classroom. The use of reflexivity is explored as a strategy for understanding educators' biases and assumptions in teaching. In addition, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics is applied as it refers to helping social w…
Disaggregating diabetes
Interest in disaggregating diabetes into numerous subtypes is growing as patients and providers recognize the limitations of standard diabetes typologies. As anthropologists, we draw attention to how 'subtyping' may reduce stigma derived from the connection between obesity and 'type 2 diabetes'. We highlight the complexities that drive diabetes and argue that an exclusive or dominant focus on diet and obesity obfuscates other underlying risks. Ye…
Corporate Logic in Clinical Care
As large corporations come to dominate U.S. health care, clinical medicine is increasingly market-driven and governed by business principles. We examine ways in which health insurers and health care systems are transforming the goals and means of clinical practice. Based on ethnographic research of diabetes management in a large health care system, we argue that together these organizations redefine clinical care in terms that prioritize financia…
Racialized Risk in Clinical Care
Racial/ethnic identity is contingent and arbitrary, yet it is commonly used to evaluate disease risk and treatment response. Drawing on open-ended interviews with patients and clinicians in two US clinics, we explore how racialized risk is conceptualized and how it impacts patient care and experience. We found that racial/ethnic risk was a common but poorly defined construct for both patients and clinicians, who intermingled concepts of genetics,…
Lived Experiences and Life Satisfaction of ChildFree Women in Late Life
The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the overall life satisfaction of older adult women who have not had children. We explore the following questions: (1) What is the overall sense of life satisfaction of childfree women over 65 years of age? (2) What is the lived experience of being a childfree woman in U.S. society? and (3) How does being childfree inform women’s overall life satisfaction? Using a phenomenological res…
Support for Mothers Who Are Incarcerated
History, Truth, and Reconciliation in Settler Health Care
Knowledge and perceptions of BRCA1/2 genetic testing and needs of diverse women with a personal or family history of breast cancer in South Florida
Teaching social work students the influence of explicit and implicit bias
The profession of social work is deeply rooted in teaching Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) students the impact of social injustice and the skills required to advocate for equity and equality. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) competencies embedded in social work curricula are specifically designed to assure students recognize that biases, explicit or implicit, by groups, government, or organizations might perpetuate social injustice. Howe…
Preparing students for the profession
Social work educators are tasked with students to incorporate into practice the skills of engaging diversity and difference, advancing human rights and challenging social injustice. Students are asked to engage with concepts and practices that confront the status quo of institutionalized oppression. Yet, students may not be exposed to examination of the ways in which social work practitioners may unintentionally recreate and reinforce hierarchies…
Sociology (20 works) · Political science (18 works) · Medicine (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Health care (6 works) · Nursing (6 works)