"It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives. It studies 'human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation.'"
Provides an overview of the field of medical anthropology and its history, goals, and key concepts.
Ethnography: A qualitative research method that involves the systematic observation, description, and analysis of human cultures.
Culture and illness: The idea that cultural beliefs, practices, and values can influence the way people perceive, experience, and respond to health and illness.
Biomedical model of health: The dominant model of health in Western medicine that views health as the absence of disease or dysfunction in the body and emphasizes biological and physiological processes to explain health and illness.
Alternative medicines: Practices and systems of healthcare that differ from the biomedical model of health, often based on traditional, cultural, or spiritual beliefs.
Medicalization: The process by which non-medical problems or conditions are defined as medical issues, often resulting in medical interventions or treatment.
Health disparities: Systematic differences in health outcomes, such as the access to healthcare, health status, and mortality rates, between different social groups, often linked to socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, or gender.
Global health: The study of health issues and challenges that transcend national borders and involve global health policies, institutions, and practices.
Social determinants of health: The social and environmental factors, such as poverty, housing, education, and access to healthcare, that shape health outcomes and inequalities.
Illness experience: The subjective and personal experience of living with a health condition, including the emotional, social, and cultural dimensions of illness and healing.
Medical imperialism: The historically pervasive power dynamics and unequal relationships between Western medicine and non-Western societies, often involving the exportation of Western healthcare practices and ideologies to other parts of the world without regard for local cultural contexts.
Historical Introduction: This type of introduction provides a historical overview of medical anthropology, including its origins and evolution as a discipline.
Cultural Introduction: This type of introduction emphasizes the cultural context of health and illness, focusing on the ways in which beliefs, values, and practices shape medical understanding and treatment.
Applied Introduction: This type of introduction highlights the practical applications of medical anthropology, including its role in public health, health equity, and cross-cultural healthcare.
Theoretical Introduction: This type of introduction explores the theoretical frameworks that underlie medical anthropology, including cultural constructionism, bioculturalism, and critical medical anthropology.
Interdisciplinary Introduction: This type of introduction situates medical anthropology within the broader interdisciplinary field of health studies, highlighting its connections to fields such as sociology, psychology, and epidemiology.
Critical Introduction: This type of introduction emphasizes the critical perspectives of medical anthropology, including its critique of biomedical models, neoliberalism, and global health inequalities.
Experiential Introduction: This type of introduction invites readers to engage with medical anthropology through personal experiences and narratives, highlighting the impact of culture on health and wellbeing.
Comparative Introduction: This type of introduction compares different health care systems in two or more cultures to explore how medical anthropology has evolved in different societies.
Global Introduction: This type of introduction analyses and examines the role and impact of globalisation on health and disease.
"...a subfield of social and cultural anthropology that examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or influenced by issues of health, health care and related issues."
"The term 'medical anthropology' has been used since 1963 as a label for empirical research and theoretical production by anthropologists into the social processes and cultural representations of health, illness and the nursing/care practices associated with these."
"In Europe, the terms 'anthropology of medicine', 'anthropology of health' and 'anthropology of illness' have also been used..."
"...the terms 'anthropology of medicine', 'anthropology of health' and 'anthropology of illness' have also been used." (no specific time frame mentioned)
"...'medical anthropology' was also a translation of the 19th-century Dutch term 'medische anthropologie'."
"'...medical anthropology' was also a translation of the 19th-century Dutch term 'medische anthropologie'."
"It studies 'human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation.'"
"It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives."
"...it is one of the most highly developed areas of anthropology and applied anthropology..."
"...examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or influenced by issues of health, health care and related issues."
"It examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or influenced by issues of health, health care and related issues."
"...empirical research and theoretical production by anthropologists into the social processes and cultural representations of health, illness, and the nursing/care practices associated with these."
"...the social processes and cultural representations of health, illness, and the nursing/care practices associated with these."
"It is one of the most highly developed areas of anthropology and applied anthropology..."
"...the social processes and cultural representations of health, illness, and the nursing/care practices associated with these."
"It studies 'human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation.'"
"It examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or influenced by issues of health, health care and related issues."
"It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives. It studies 'human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation'."
"This term was chosen by some authors during the 1940s to refer to philosophical studies on health and illness."