In Roxbury's Egleston Corner, PIH has focused on alleviating domestic violence as well as improving patient follow-ups and prescribed drug use, according to the release.

Farmer says PIH's work is "about people who suffer."

As a medical anthropologist, Farmer says he studies such suffering from an academic standpoint. He looks at how people explain suffering when the resources, technical capacity and goodwill exist to prevent it.

In his most recent book Women, Poverty and AIDS, he discusses why poor women of color have become victims of AIDS and how doctors, social workers, public health workers and others understand this phenomenon.

He teaches four classes for the Medical School: "Social Roots of Disease and Health"; "Culture, Poverty, and Infectious Disease", clinical rotations in infectious disease; and in Haiti, to one or two HMS students per term, "Medical Anthropology in a Community Health Center."

Kate D. Nash '99 took "Culture, Poverty and Infectious Disease" last spring. As the only undergraduate in the class, Nash says she was warmly welcomed by Farmer.

"His approach focuses more on the socio-cultural and socio-economic roots of disease transmission than the biological mechanisms of disease transmission," she says.

Farmer says he is happy with what he is doing right now.

"There are a lot of people who believe in justice, fairness and equality and want to make it a part of their life," he says. "I've been lucky that I've been able to incorporate that universal desire into my professional life."

He says he hopes to continue his work in this field and stay at Harvard for the next 30 to 40 years.

"I'll stay at Harvard until they fire me," he says.