Health, Risk, and Resilience: Interdisciplinary Concepts and Applications

Risk and resilience research articulates major explanatory frameworks regarding the persistence of health disparities. Specifically, scholars have advocated a sophisticated knowledge of risk, a more grounded understanding of resilience, and comprehensive and meaningful measurements of risk and resilience pathways across cultures. The goal is to operationalize research issues into sustainable health practice and equity-focused policy. This article synthesizes current understandings on risk and resilience from the lens of medical anthropology: It reviews key insights gained from the standpoint of cultural narratives, political economy, and life history theory, as well as current shortcomings. The emergent literature on health-related risk and resilience is breathing new life into collaboration and dialogue across diverse fields of research and policy.