Dominique P. Béhague

Associate Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society
Associate Professor of Anthropology

Dominique Pareja Béhague is an Associate Professor at the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society, the Department of Anthropology, and the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. She holds a BA and MA in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College, a PhD in Social Anthropology from McGill University, and an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She is also a part-time Reader in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine at King’s College London and previously held an honorary appointment at the LSHTM, where she worked for eight years before joining Vanderbilt.

Dominique’s research in southern Brazil explores the intersection of psychiatric reform, social movements, and the emergence of "adolescence" as an object of psycho-developmental expertise. She co-designed the longitudinal ethnographic sub-study of the 1982 Pelotas Birth Cohort with Professor Helen Gonçalves. This cohort, established by Professors Cesar Victora and Fernando Barros of the Federal University of Pelotas, is one of the longest-running cohorts in the world, and one of only a handful that incorporates ethnographic methods. Dominique has also conducted research on sexual and reproductive health and the politics of evidence-based research in global health policy. Her research has received funding from entities such as the US National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the World Health Organization, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and The Wellcome Trust.

With more than 50 peer-reviewed articles or book chapters, Dominique writes across multiple disciplines including anthropology, sociology, epidemiology, Brazilian and Latin American Studies, global health, psychiatry, and the mental health survivor-led movement. She has edited or co-edited four special issues on: the anthropology of psychiatry for Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry (2008); the rise of developmental science for Social Science and Medicine (2015); the ‘global psyche’ for Medical Anthropology Quarterly (2020); and theorising ‘the social’ in mental health for Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (2024).

Her research has been featured in various media outlets, including BBC 4, BBC World service, National Public Radio, France Télévisions, Mad in America, and for the New England Journal of Medicine Interviews podcast. Two recent invited talks include one on interdisciplinary practice in the Pelotas cohort and a Psychiatry Grand Rounds talk on what Brazilian psychiatry can teach practitioners about taking social and political factors into account in the mental health clinic.

Recently, with Professors Bernardo Horta and Helen Gonçalves, Dominique was awarded a two-year National Science Foundation grant, due to start in September 2024, for continued research in the 1982 Pelotas birth cohort. The project aims to integrate theories from science and technology studies, anthropology, and developmental psychology to build a “critical developmental science”—an interdisciplinary, culturally sensitive, and socially responsible approach to studying human development.