What is the origin of the term positive deviance (PD)?
Jerry Sternin: The term has been around for several decades and had been used as a research tool. People have looked at poor kids who are well nourished despite their poverty and the factors that have enabled their families to have well-nourished children despite their poverty. They called these families “positive deviants.” What are your most recent projects? In the last year we’ve been working with hospitals in the United States on the problem of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Hospital acquired infections such as MRSA kill 90 to 100,000 people a year. It seemed like an intractable problem, in that all hospitals have it. So we’ve been working with hospitals both in the Veterans’ Administration System and six other hospitals under a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to eliminate this terrible bug. At the same time we are also working on advocating against the trafficking of girls and sex workers in Indonesia. We are working with communities that are ver
