Imagining Health Insurance: Everyday Illustrations from Vietnam’s Campaign for Universal Health Coverage

Amy Dao is an anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. She has published widely on global health and how culture shapes economic life. The images and ideas shared in this photo essay draw from a larger book project entitled Socializing Insurance, which investigates Vietnam’s campaign for universal health coverage and how health insurance makes future calculation a moral project. Research was carried out in collaboration with the Southern Institute of Social Sciences in Hồ Chí Minh City and the Institutional Review Board of Columbia University Medical Center. The project received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and the Nippon Foundation. She thanks her parents for helping her with the translations. Follow her on Twitter @AmyDao.