A book by a University of Iowa anthropologist has been recognized by the Society for Medical Anthropology.

The book by Elana Buch, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, was awarded an Eileen Basker Memorial Prize for its "significant contribution to anthropological scholarship on gender and health.” Buch's book is titled, "Inequalities of Aging: Paradoxes of Independence in American Home Care," and was published in 2018 by New York University Press.

 In the award announcement, the society described Buch's book as "an intimate account of the ways that the fate of of older adults and the working poor are bound together in a society so fixated independence that it fails to value both aging and care.  By placing home care relationships within broader histories of U.S. social policy, the book argues that care plays a critical role in generating intersecting racial, gender, and economic inequalities."