Linda L. Barnes, PhD
Professor
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Family Medicine

PhD, Harvard University
MA, Harvard University
MTS, Harvard University
BA, Smith College



Dr. Linda Barnes is a medical anthropologist and a scholar in the study of world religions. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine (BUSM), and in the Division of Religious and Theological Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her research and teaching interests address the intersections of culture, religion and spirituality, and complementary and alternative therapies. She is committed to including an understanding of the healing practices of culturally complex patient populations in the training of clinicians, and to helping clinicians to better understand how religious worldviews play a part in patient and family understandings of illness and healing.

Dr. Barnes received her BA from Smith College, following which she earned her Masters in Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in Comparative Religion and the allied field of Medical Anthropology. As an historian and medical anthropologist, her own research expertise is in the cultural and social history of Western responses to Chinese healing traditions, in relation to histories of race, medicine, and religion.

Since 1999, Dr. Barnes has been a member of the faculty of Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, where she founded and directs an urban ethnographic program—the Boston Healing Landscape Project (BHLP), a program for the study of religions, medicines, and healing—funded three times by the Ford Foundation between 2000 and 2008. The BHLP’s research focuses on forms of complementary and alternative medicine common among the culturally complex patient communities served by the medical school’s teaching hospital Boston Medical Center (BMC).

Prior to coming to BUSM, she taught courses on religiously grounded healing traditions at Harvard University, Harvard Divinity School, Brown University, and Northeastern University, and has received multiple teaching awards for her work with students. She now teaches and mentors medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty at BUSM. Beginning in the fall of 2009, her group launched a new Masters Program in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice through the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences at BUSM.

For ten years, Dr. Barnes served as the consultant to faculty-development workshops, sponsored by the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and funded by the Lilly Endowment, the Luce Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, for faculty in the study of religion. She also served as the Regional Director of the New England/Maritimes Region of the American Academy of Religion from 2002-2008, and founded and co-chairs the "Religions, Medicines, and Healing Group" program unit of the AAR.

Dr. Barnes has published her ethnographic work in leading medical anthropology journals such as Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, Medical Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Social, Science and Medicine.

Her books include Religion and Healing in America (co-edited with Susan S. Sered, Oxford 2005); and Teaching Religion and Healing (co-edited with Ines Talamantez, Oxford 2006). Her historical scholarship appears in her book Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848 (Harvard University Press, 2005). She is currently writing a book on the social history of Chinese medicine and healing traditions in the United States, beginning in 1849 and continuing up through the present, and building an archive of related source materials.

Her expertise in the field of Chinese medicine in the U.S. has resulted in her being invited to speak to local, national, and international audiences. She has served as an expert reviewer for the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Dr. Barnes lives with her husband, nephew, two parrots, cat, and dog in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Boston Medical Center




Boston Healing Landscape Project
01/01/2007 - 12/31/2008 (PI)
Ford Foundation, The

Chinese Religious Healing in America
10/15/2006 - 12/31/2007 (PI)
American Academy of Religion

Muslim Patients and the Cultures of Healing in Boston
09/01/2004 - 12/31/2005 (PI)
Kenneth B Schwartz Center, The

Complimentary and Alternative Medicine Education Project Grant
09/28/2000 - 07/31/2005 (PI)
Children's Hospital NIH NCCIH


Chinese Healing and the United States: 1849-2004
09/15/2006 - 09/30/2009 (PI)
NIH-NLM
5 G13 LM008936-03A1

Ghana Pilot Study
12/01/2004 - 11/30/2005 (PI)
Anderson-Rogers Foundation, Inc


Title

Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.

iCite Analysis       Copy PMIDs To Clipboard

  1. Gallego-Pérez DF, Declercq E, Saper RB, Barnes LL, Wardle J. Characterizing Therapeutic Pluralism Policies in Latin America: A Qualitative Content Analysis. J Integr Complement Med. 2023; 29(6-7):439-450.View Related Profiles. PMID: 37200459
     
  2. Hwang IT, Kramer JM, Cohn ES, Barnes LL. Asian Immigrant Parents' Role Enactment While Accessing and Using Services for Their Child With Developmental Disabilities in the United States: A Meta-Synthesis Study. Qual Health Res. 2020 09; 30(11):1632-1646. PMID: 32564671
     
  3. Koenders SL, Barnes LL, Laird LD, Ostrach B, Fix GM. APPLIED TRAINING IN A MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY MASTER'S PROGRAM. Pract Anthropol. 2020 Jan 01; 42(1):43-47.View Related Profiles. PMID: 35177878; PMCID: PMC8849477; DOI: 10.17730/0888-4552.42.1.43;
     
  4. White AA, Logghe HJ, Goodenough DA, Barnes LL, Hallward A, Allen IM, Green DW, Krupat E, Llerena-Quinn R. Self-Awareness and Cultural Identity as an Effort to Reduce Bias in Medicine. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2018 02; 5(1):34-49.View Related Profiles. PMID: 28342029
     
  5. Meneses V, Vanderbilt D, Barnes L, Augustyn M. "Footprints in the Bathroom": The Role of Spirituality in Patient Diagnosis. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2017 Feb/Mar; 38 Suppl 1:S79-S81.View Related Profiles. PMID: 28141730; DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000000393;
     
  6. Laird LD, Barnes LL, Hunter-Adams J, Cochran J, Geltman PL. Looking Islam in the Teeth: The Social Life of a Somali Toothbrush. Med Anthropol Q. 2015 Sep; 29(3):334-56.View Related Profiles. PMID: 25684459; PMCID: PMC4536187; DOI: 10.1111/maq.12196;
     
  7. Mitchell SE, Mako M, Sadikova E, Barnes L, Stone A, Rosal MC, Wiecha J. The comparative experiences of women in control: diabetes self-management education in a virtual world. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2014 Nov; 8(6):1185-92.View Related Profiles. PMID: 25212580; PMCID: PMC4455456; DOI: 10.1177/1932296814549829;
     
  8. Adams JH, Young S, Laird LD, Geltman PL, Cochran JJ, Hassan A, Egal F, Paasche-Orlow MK, Barnes LL. The cultural basis for oral health practices among Somali refugees pre-and post-resettlement in Massachusetts. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2013 Nov; 24(4):1474-85.View Related Profiles. PMID: 24185145; PMCID: PMC3921667; DOI: 10.1353/hpu.2013.0154;
     
  9. Geltman PL, Adams JH, Cochran J, Doros G, Rybin D, Henshaw M, Barnes LL, Paasche-Orlow M. The impact of functional health literacy and acculturation on the oral health status of Somali refugees living in Massachusetts. Am J Public Health. 2013 Aug; 103(8):1516-23.View Related Profiles. PMID: 23327248; PMCID: PMC3640653; DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.300885;
     
  10. Highfield ES, Spellman L, Barnes LL, Kaptchuk TJ, Paradis G, Conboy LA, Saper R. Profile of minority and under-served patients using acupuncture. Complement Ther Med. 2012 Feb-Apr; 20(1-2):70-2.View Related Profiles. PMID: 22305251; PMCID: PMC3273714; DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2011.09.005;
     
Showing 10 of 22 results. Show More

This graph shows the total number of publications by year, by first, middle/unknown, or last author.

Bar chart showing 22 publications over 16 distinct years, with a maximum of 3 publications in 2002

YearPublications
19981
20001
20023
20031
20041
20051
20072
20081
20091
20111
20132
20141
20151
20172
20202
20231

Contact for Mentoring:

85 E. Newton St Fuller Building
Boston MA 02118
Google Map


Barnes's Networks
Click the "See All" links for more information and interactive visualizations
Concepts
_
Co-Authors
_
Similar People
_
Same Department