“You’re constantly learning about new topics and issues through this work!” This is how Tyler Fox summarized his past four summers at the Global Health Educational and Learning Incubator (GHELI). Now, joining the GHELI team as Program Assistant, Tyler is looking forward to contributing to educational material development and supporting the Incubator’s global health digital repository. Tyler is no stranger to the multidisciplinary work happening at the Incubator: During the four summers of interning at the Incubator while a student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he has helped curate resources for the repository, such as the Incubator’s resource pack on mass incarceration.
When he started college, Tyler believed he wanted to go to medical school. This changed quickly as he started exploring medical anthropology courses, where medical systems were treated as a culture within themselves. “I became really interested in medical pluralism—places where there are a lot of different medical cultures interacting with biomedicine.”
Anthropology sparked Tyler’s passion for maternal and child health, specifically maternal mortality prevention. As he studied health disparities in the U.S., it put his previous experiences in Tanzania, El Salvador, Mexico, and other parts of the world into sharp relief. “In the U.S., black women are dying at higher rates than their white counterparts. To me, that is really something that shouldn’t happen, and it boils down to race and access arguments.”
At the Incubator, Tyler leveraged his academic coursework to develop a resource pack on midwifery, which also set the foundation for Tyler’s thesis field research in Zambia. In Zambia, Tyler’s qualitative research examined perspectives around the country’s shift from traditional birth attendants to skilled health workers. “Traditional birth attendants previously filled the gaps in health care access, particularly for mothers in rural areas,” shares Tyler. “And many of the traditional birth attendants think this shift has been unfair. Many of them are not paid, and they do it as a side job.” The experience sharpened his qualitative research skills and his understanding of power and privilege in the interviewing dynamic.
Given Tyler’s thoughtfulness and attention to the world around him, it was no surprise to that GHELI recruited him after graduation. He looks forward to exploring new interests and contributing to resource development across timely topics – mass incarceration, gun violence, the opioid epidemic. Outside of his endeavors in the fields of public health and medical anthropology, Tyler has spent his summers rowing with Riverside Boat Club and rowed competitively for UNC-Chapel Hill during the school year. He also volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America,
Welcome (back), Tyler!