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Anita Hardon (1961) graduated cum laude in Medical Biology at the Uni­versity of Amsterdam (1984), specializing in tropical hygiene, science dynamics and medical anthropology. She went on to conduct PhD research at the Department of Cultural Anthropology/Non-Western Sociology of the Univer­sity of Amsterdam and defended her PhD thesis "Confronting Ill-Health: Medicines, Self-care and the Poor in Manila" in 1990. Following her disserta­tion, she worked on the book Drug Policy in Developing Countries with other authors and formulated the Community Drug Use Project (1992-1994), which resulted in a series of studies in Pakistan, the Philippines, Mali and Uganda. These studies elucidate how people define, experience and treat their health problems, and their responses to public health programmes to promote the appropriate use of medicine. They also show how the commercial interests of doctors, drugsellers and pharmaceutical manufacturers play an important role.

Anita Hardon has recently become more involved in research in the field of gender and reproductive health. This research uses a symmetrical approach involving the study of people's subjective experiences of reproductive health, and the analysis of the cultural construction of reproductive health care interventions. She has done several policy studies and evaluations in the field of health and development, including one analyzing the challenges involved in increasing access to HIV/AIDS medicines in resource poor settings for the World Health Organization.

Anita Hardon has published in Social, Science and Medicine, Health Policy and Planning, Central Issues in Anthropology and other journals in the field of health and development. She is currently professor of Health and Social Care at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (Sociology / Anthropology Department) and dean of the Amsterdam Institute for Social science Research (www.aissr.uva.nl ), both of the University of Amsterdam.