Priscilla Reining

Priscilla Alden Copeland Reining (March 11, 1923 – July 19, 2007) was an American applied anthropologist. She was most remembered for her extensive work with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially throughout Africa. Priscilla Reining was the recipient of three anthropological degrees, from the University of Chicago. Reining's field of specialization was centered mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. During a Sudanese uprising in 1955, Reining and her family fled the country having "led a whole convoy of people."

Reining also pioneered and implicated the Landsat imagery technology in the field of anthropology and other social sciences. However, it was her work on HIV transmission in Africa that brought her most recognition within the anthropology community.

HIV/AIDS in Africa and Asia During the 1980s while on a visit to Tanzania, Reining noted that the people she had been studying, the Haya, were getting sick and the mortality rate within the region was becoming alarmingly high.

She began to research into causes and prevention methods of the disease. She found an apparent connection between Circumcision and HIV transmission, as uncircumcised men in Kenya had a much higher risk of being infected.

In the mid-1990s, John and Pat Caldwell, mapping the progress of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, confirmed that the regions with the highest HIV/AIDS rates were also regions with the greatest number of uncircumcised males. A similar correlation was found in South Asia and Southeast Asia by a United Nations study (UNAIDS).

While the introduction of Landsat imagery to the field of social science was slow at first due to the fear of satellites replacing researchers in the field, the technology was eventually widely adopted and incorporated into the fields of anthropology and archaeology among other social sciences. This method is still used today, for studying village patterns as well as making the finding and mapping locations of archaeological sites easier. Reining used this technique to help map the HIV/AIDS occurrences in the region where she worked and it was one of the aspects that contributed to her findings involving male circumcision.

Other works Reining authored or co-authored over fifty publications.

Death Reining died in her home on July 19, 2007, aged 84, from complications due to lung cancer.