Craig R. Janes

Professor Janes is a medical anthropologist interested in and committed to social science approaches to public health and global health policy. He has research strengths in human-environment interactions, social inequities and health, global health governance, and maternal and child health.

From 2005-2008 Professor Janes examined the impact of recent climate disasters on herding households in rural Mongolia and, with his former doctoral student Oyuntsetseg Chuluundorj, has recently completed a book on this topic. His research with rural herders brought him in direct contact with the rapid scale-up of mining activities in Mongolia – many funded by Canadian investment – and the impact that these are having on rural communities.

Since 2009 Professor Janes has focused increasingly on assessing the public health impact of global resource extraction in Mongolia and beyond. He now works mainly at the policy level, specifically on issues related to public health governance of the resource sector. His current projects in this area have focused on bringing health impact assessment concepts and methods into the extractive sector. In recognition of his many years of work in Mongolia, in 2011, he was awarded the “National Medal of Honour” by the Government of Mongolia for his contributions to developing the health sector, the highest award given to a non-national.

In addition to his work on mining and health, Professor Janes has a broad theoretical interest in the association of global social and environmental changes with the emergence and outbreak of infectious zoonotic diseases.