Sarah Miller-Fellows

SARAH MILLER-FELLOWS, then a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, was awarded a grant in October 2016 to aid research on ‘Reproduction in the Context of Genetic Disorders among the Geauga County, Ohio Amish,’ supervised by Dr. Vanessa Hildebrand. The Old Order Amish have a high burden of genetic disorders due to founder effect. This project explores how medical clinics providing care for these disorders are shaped by the Amish context. Patients, providers and the community at large engage with questions regarding how to best provide care within the context of the Amish relationship with technology, cultural values and rejection of commercial health insurance. This study presents research from an ethnographic study of clinics in three communities, including interviews with clinicians, administrators, board members, and Amish community members. The findings from this research provide important knowledge about how Amish communities and the medical clinics that serve them can create successful, culturally competent healthcare to best serve a diverse population and how communities organize to ensure their families are receiving the care they need.