Medical anthropology
Encyclopedia
Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which 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
, and is 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.
Furthermore, in Europe
the terms "anthropology of medicine", "anthropology of health" and "anthropology of illness" have also been used, and "medical anthropology", was also a translation of the 19th century Dutch
term "medische anthropologie". This term was chosen by some authors during the 1940s to refer to philosophical studies on health and illness.
, medicine and medical practice is well documented. General anthropology occupied a notable position in the basic medical sciences (which correspond to those subjects commonly known as pre-clinical). However, medical education started to be restricted to the confines of the hospital as a consequence of the development of the clinical gaze and the confinement of patients in observational infirmaries. The hegemony
of hospital clinical education and of experimental methodologies suggested by Claude Bernard
relegate the value of the practitioners' everyday experience who was previously seen as a source of knowledge represented by the reports called medical geographies and medical topographies both based on ethnographic, demographic, statistical and sometimes epidemiological data. After the development of hospital clinical training the basic source of knowledge in medicine was experimental medicine in the hospital and laboratory, and these factors together meant that over time mostly doctors abandoned ethnography as a tool of knowledge. Most, not all because ethnography remained during a large part of the 20th century as a tool of knowledge in primary health care, rural medicine, and in international public health. The abandonment of ethnography
by medicine happened when social anthropology
adopted ethnography as one of the markers of its professional identity and started to depart from the initial project of general anthropology. The divergence of professional anthropology
from medicine
was never a complete split. The relationships between the two disciplines remained constant during the 20th century, until the development of modern medical anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s. A large number of contributors to 20th Century medical anthropology had their primary training in medicine, nursing, psychology or psychiatry, including W. H. R. Rivers
, Abram Kardiner, Robert I. Levy, Jean Benoist, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán and Arthur Kleinman
. Some of them share clinical and anthropological roles. Others came from anthropology or social sciences
, like George Foster, William Caudill, Byron Good, Tullio Seppilli, Gilles Bibeau, Lluis Mallart, Andràs Zempleni, Gilbert Lewis, Ronald Frankenberg, and Eduardo Menéndez. A recent book by Saillant & Genest describes a large international panorama
of the development of medical anthropology, and some of the main theoretical and intellectual actual debates.
s used to resolve any health problems. The term was also used to describe the health practices of aborigines in different parts of the world, with particular emphasis on their ethnobotanical knowledge. This knowledge is fundamental for isolating alkaloid
s and active pharmacological principles. Furthermore, studying the rituals surrounding popular therapies served to challenge Western
psychopathological categories, as well as the relationship in the West between science and religion. Doctors were not trying to turn popular medicine into an anthropological concept, rather they wanted to construct a scientifically based medical concept which they could use to establish the cultural limits of biomedicine
.
The concept of folk medicine was taken up by professional anthropologists in the first half of the twentieth century to demarcate between magical practices, medicine and religion and to explore the role and the significance of popular healers and their self-medicating practices. For them, popular medicine was a specific cultural feature of some groups of humans which was distinct from the universal practices of biomedicine. If every culture had its own specific popular medicine based on its general cultural features, it would be possible to propose the existence of as many medical systems as there were cultures and, therefore, develop the comparative study of these systems. Those medical systems which showed none of the syncretic features of European popular medicine were called primitive or pretechnical medicine according to whether they referred to contemporary aboriginal cultures or to cultures predating Classical Greece
. Those cultures with a documentary corpus, such as the Tibetan
, traditional Chinese or Ayurvedic cultures, were sometimes called systematic medicines. The comparative study of medical systems is known as ethnomedicine
or, if psychopathology
is the object of study, ethnopsychiatry.
Under this concept, medical systems would be seen as the specific product of each ethnic group's cultural history. Scientific biomedicine would become another medical system and therefore a cultural form which could be studied as such. This position, which originated in the cultural relativism maintained by cultural anthropology, allowed the debate with medicine and psychiatry to revolve around some fundamental questions:
Since the end of the 20th century, medical anthropologists have had a much more sophisticated understanding of the problem of cultural representations and social practices related to health, disease and medical care and attention. These have been understood as being universal with very diverse local forms articulated in transactional processes. The link at the end of this page is included to offer a wide panorama of current positions in medical anthropology.
, Canada
, Mexico
and Brazil
, collaboration between anthropology and medicine was initially concerned with implementing community health programs among ethnic and cultural minorities and with the qualitative and ethnographic evaluation of health institutions (hospitals and mental hospitals) and primary care services. Regarding the community health programs, the intention was to resolve the problems of establishing these services for a complex mosaic of ethnic groups. The ethnographic evaluation involved analyzing the interclass conflicts within the institutions which had an undesirable effect on their administrative reorganization and their institutional objectives, particularly those conflicts among doctors, nurses, auxiliary staff and administrative staff. The ethnographic reports show that interclass crises directly affected therapeutic criteria and care of the ill. They also contributed new methodological criteria for evaluating the new institutions resulting from the reforms as well as experimental care techniques such as therapeutic communities.
The ethnographic evidence supported criticisms of institutional custodialism and contributed decisively to policies of deinstitutionalizing psychiatric and social care in general and led to, in some countries such as Italy
, a rethink of the guidelines on education and promoting health.
The empirical answers to these questions led to anthropologists being involved in many areas. These included: developing international and community health programs in developing countries; evaluating the influence of social and cultural variables in the epidemiology
of certain forms of psychiatric pathology
(transcultural psychiatry); studying cultural resistance to innovation in therapeutic and care practices; and studying traditional healers, folk healers and empirical midwives who may be reinvented as health workers (the so-called barefoot doctors).
Also, since the 1960s, biomedicine in developed countries has been faced by a series of problems which demand that we inspect the (unfortunately-named) predisposing social or cultural factors, which have been reduced to mere variables in quantitative protocols and subordinated to causal biological or genetic interpretations. Among these the following are of particular note:
Added to these are the problems associated with implementing community health mechanisms. These problems are perceived initially as tools for fighting against unequal access to health services. However, once a comprehensive service is available to the public, new problems emerge out of ethnic, cultural or religious differences, or from differences between age groups, genders or social classes.
If implementing community care mechanisms gives rise to one set of problems, then a whole new set of problems also arises when these same mechanisms are dismantled and the responsibilities which they once assumed are placed back on the shoulders of individual members of society.
In all these fields, local and qualitative ethnographic research is indispensable for understanding the way patients and their social networks incorporate knowledge on health and illness when their experience is nuanced by complex cultural influences. These influences result from the nature of social relations in advanced societies and from the influence of social communication media, especially audiovisual media and advertising.
Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering, as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not a result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as cultural psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry or ethnopsychiatry.
, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University
, the University of Arizona
and the University of Washington
http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/programs/medical_grad.php offer PhD programs focused on this subject. The University of South Florida
, the University of Arizona
and the University of Washington
http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/programs/medical_concurrentdegree.php also offer a dual degree (MA/PhD) in applied anthropology with a MPH. In the UK, Durham University is known for MSc and PhD programs in Medical Anthropology. A fairly comprehensive account of different postgraduate training courses in different countries can be found on the web site of the Society of Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association http://www.medanthro.net/academic/grad/index.html.
on medical anthropology there is an enormous quantity of medical anthropological research available in other languages, in books, or chapters of books and also in periodicals.http://web.mac.com/josepmcomelles/iWeb/REDAM/C5ADFC35-013B-4103-8DC0-99673C0C9480.html
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and applied anthropology
Applied anthropology
Applied anthropology refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. In as much as anthropology traditionally entails four sub-disciplines--Archaeology, biological/physical, cultural/social, and linguistic anthropology—the...
, and is a subfield of social
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
and cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
that examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or influenced by issues of health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
, health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
and related issues.
The term "medical anthropology" has been used since 1963 as a label for empirical research
Empirical research
Empirical research is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empirical evidence can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively...
and theoretical production by anthropologists into the social processes and cultural representations of health, illness and the nursing/care practices associated with these.
Furthermore, in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
the terms "anthropology of medicine", "anthropology of health" and "anthropology of illness" have also been used, and "medical anthropology", was also a translation of the 19th century Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
term "medische anthropologie". This term was chosen by some authors during the 1940s to refer to philosophical studies on health and illness.
Historical background
The relationship between anthropologyAnthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, medicine and medical practice is well documented. General anthropology occupied a notable position in the basic medical sciences (which correspond to those subjects commonly known as pre-clinical). However, medical education started to be restricted to the confines of the hospital as a consequence of the development of the clinical gaze and the confinement of patients in observational infirmaries. The hegemony
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
of hospital clinical education and of experimental methodologies suggested by Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...
relegate the value of the practitioners' everyday experience who was previously seen as a source of knowledge represented by the reports called medical geographies and medical topographies both based on ethnographic, demographic, statistical and sometimes epidemiological data. After the development of hospital clinical training the basic source of knowledge in medicine was experimental medicine in the hospital and laboratory, and these factors together meant that over time mostly doctors abandoned ethnography as a tool of knowledge. Most, not all because ethnography remained during a large part of the 20th century as a tool of knowledge in primary health care, rural medicine, and in international public health. The abandonment of ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
by medicine happened when social anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
adopted ethnography as one of the markers of its professional identity and started to depart from the initial project of general anthropology. The divergence of professional anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
from medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
was never a complete split. The relationships between the two disciplines remained constant during the 20th century, until the development of modern medical anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s. A large number of contributors to 20th Century medical anthropology had their primary training in medicine, nursing, psychology or psychiatry, including W. H. R. Rivers
W. H. R. Rivers
William Halse Rivers Rivers, FRCP, FRS, was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist, best known for his work with shell-shocked soldiers during World War I. Rivers' most famous patient was the poet Siegfried Sassoon...
, Abram Kardiner, Robert I. Levy, Jean Benoist, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán and Arthur Kleinman
Arthur Kleinman
Arthur Kleinman is a prominent American psychiatrist and is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of medical anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry at Harvard University, USA. He is well known for his work on mental illness in Chinese culture, was the chair of the Harvard Department of...
. Some of them share clinical and anthropological roles. Others came from anthropology or social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
, like George Foster, William Caudill, Byron Good, Tullio Seppilli, Gilles Bibeau, Lluis Mallart, Andràs Zempleni, Gilbert Lewis, Ronald Frankenberg, and Eduardo Menéndez. A recent book by Saillant & Genest describes a large international panorama
Panorama
A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....
of the development of medical anthropology, and some of the main theoretical and intellectual actual debates.
Popular medicine and medical systems
For much of the 20th century the concept of popular medicine, or folk medicine, has been familiar to both doctors and anthropologists. Doctors, anthropologists and medical anthropologists used these terms to describe the resources, other than the help of health professionals, which European or Latin American peasantPeasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s used to resolve any health problems. The term was also used to describe the health practices of aborigines in different parts of the world, with particular emphasis on their ethnobotanical knowledge. This knowledge is fundamental for isolating alkaloid
Alkaloid
Alkaloids are a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds that contain mostly basic nitrogen atoms. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Also some synthetic compounds of similar structure are attributed to alkaloids...
s and active pharmacological principles. Furthermore, studying the rituals surrounding popular therapies served to challenge Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
psychopathological categories, as well as the relationship in the West between science and religion. Doctors were not trying to turn popular medicine into an anthropological concept, rather they wanted to construct a scientifically based medical concept which they could use to establish the cultural limits of biomedicine
Biomedicine
Biomedicine is a branch of medical science that applies biological and other natural-science principles to clinical practice,. Biomedicine, i.e. medical research, involves the study of physiological processes with methods from biology, chemistry and physics. Approaches range from understanding...
.
The concept of folk medicine was taken up by professional anthropologists in the first half of the twentieth century to demarcate between magical practices, medicine and religion and to explore the role and the significance of popular healers and their self-medicating practices. For them, popular medicine was a specific cultural feature of some groups of humans which was distinct from the universal practices of biomedicine. If every culture had its own specific popular medicine based on its general cultural features, it would be possible to propose the existence of as many medical systems as there were cultures and, therefore, develop the comparative study of these systems. Those medical systems which showed none of the syncretic features of European popular medicine were called primitive or pretechnical medicine according to whether they referred to contemporary aboriginal cultures or to cultures predating Classical Greece
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
. Those cultures with a documentary corpus, such as the Tibetan
Traditional Tibetan medicine
Traditional Tibetan medicine is a centuries-old traditional medical system that employs a complex approach to diagnosis, incorporating techniques such as pulse analysis and urinalysis, and utilizes behavior and dietary modification, medicines composed of natural materials and physical therapies...
, traditional Chinese or Ayurvedic cultures, were sometimes called systematic medicines. The comparative study of medical systems is known as ethnomedicine
Ethnomedicine
Ethnomedicine is a sub-field of ethnobotany or medical anthropology that deals with the study of traditional medicines: not only those that have relevant written sources Ethnomedicine is a sub-field of ethnobotany or medical anthropology that deals with the study of traditional medicines: not only...
or, if psychopathology
Psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...
is the object of study, ethnopsychiatry.
Under this concept, medical systems would be seen as the specific product of each ethnic group's cultural history. Scientific biomedicine would become another medical system and therefore a cultural form which could be studied as such. This position, which originated in the cultural relativism maintained by cultural anthropology, allowed the debate with medicine and psychiatry to revolve around some fundamental questions:
- The relative influence of genotypical and phenotypical factors in relation to personality and certain forms of pathology, especially psychiatric and psychosomatic pathologies.
- The influence of culture on what a society considers to be normal, pathological or abnormal.
- The verification in different cultures of the universality of the nosological categories of biomedicine and psychiatry.
- The identification and description of diseases belonging to specific cultures which have not been previously described by clinical medicine. These are known as ethnic disorders and, more recently, as culture bound syndromes, and include the evil eye and tarantism among European peasants, being possessed or in a state of trance in many cultures, and nervous anorexia, nerves and premenstrual syndrome in Western societies.
Since the end of the 20th century, medical anthropologists have had a much more sophisticated understanding of the problem of cultural representations and social practices related to health, disease and medical care and attention. These have been understood as being universal with very diverse local forms articulated in transactional processes. The link at the end of this page is included to offer a wide panorama of current positions in medical anthropology.
Applied medical anthropology
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, collaboration between anthropology and medicine was initially concerned with implementing community health programs among ethnic and cultural minorities and with the qualitative and ethnographic evaluation of health institutions (hospitals and mental hospitals) and primary care services. Regarding the community health programs, the intention was to resolve the problems of establishing these services for a complex mosaic of ethnic groups. The ethnographic evaluation involved analyzing the interclass conflicts within the institutions which had an undesirable effect on their administrative reorganization and their institutional objectives, particularly those conflicts among doctors, nurses, auxiliary staff and administrative staff. The ethnographic reports show that interclass crises directly affected therapeutic criteria and care of the ill. They also contributed new methodological criteria for evaluating the new institutions resulting from the reforms as well as experimental care techniques such as therapeutic communities.
The ethnographic evidence supported criticisms of institutional custodialism and contributed decisively to policies of deinstitutionalizing psychiatric and social care in general and led to, in some countries such as Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, a rethink of the guidelines on education and promoting health.
The empirical answers to these questions led to anthropologists being involved in many areas. These included: developing international and community health programs in developing countries; evaluating the influence of social and cultural variables in the epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
of certain forms of psychiatric pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
(transcultural psychiatry); studying cultural resistance to innovation in therapeutic and care practices; and studying traditional healers, folk healers and empirical midwives who may be reinvented as health workers (the so-called barefoot doctors).
Also, since the 1960s, biomedicine in developed countries has been faced by a series of problems which demand that we inspect the (unfortunately-named) predisposing social or cultural factors, which have been reduced to mere variables in quantitative protocols and subordinated to causal biological or genetic interpretations. Among these the following are of particular note:
a) The transition between a dominant system designed for acute infectious pathology to a system designed for chromic degenerative pathology without any specific etiological therapy.
b) The emergence of the need to develop long term treatment mechanisms and strategies, as opposed to incisive therapeutic treatments.
c) The influence of concepts such as quality of life in relation to classic biomedical therapeutic criteria.
Added to these are the problems associated with implementing community health mechanisms. These problems are perceived initially as tools for fighting against unequal access to health services. However, once a comprehensive service is available to the public, new problems emerge out of ethnic, cultural or religious differences, or from differences between age groups, genders or social classes.
If implementing community care mechanisms gives rise to one set of problems, then a whole new set of problems also arises when these same mechanisms are dismantled and the responsibilities which they once assumed are placed back on the shoulders of individual members of society.
In all these fields, local and qualitative ethnographic research is indispensable for understanding the way patients and their social networks incorporate knowledge on health and illness when their experience is nuanced by complex cultural influences. These influences result from the nature of social relations in advanced societies and from the influence of social communication media, especially audiovisual media and advertising.
The agenda of medical anthropology
Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole and important processes of internal specialization are taking place. For this reason, any agenda is always debatable. In general, we may consider the following five basic fields:
- the development of systems of medical knowledge and medical care
- the doctor and patient relationship
- the integration of alternative medical systems in culturally diverse environments
- the interaction of social, environmental and biological factors which influence health and illness both in the individual and the community as a whole
- the impact of biomedicine and biomedical technologies in non-Western settings
Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering, as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not a result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as cultural psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry or ethnopsychiatry.
The training of medical anthropologists
All medical anthropologists are trained in anthropology as their main discipline. Many come from health professions such as medicine or nursing, whereas others come from backgrounds such as psychology, social work, social education or sociology. Cultural and transcultural psychiatrists are trained as anthropologists and, naturally, psychiatric clinicians. Training in medical anthropology is normally acquired at a master's (M.A. or M.Sc.) and doctoral level. In Latin countries there are specific masters' in medical anthropology, such as in México http://www.ciesas.edu.mx/, Brazil :pt:Antropologia da Saúde, and Spain http://www.urv.cat/masters_oficials/en_antropologia_medica.html, while in the United States universities such as the University of South FloridaUniversity of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
and the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/programs/medical_grad.php offer PhD programs focused on this subject. The University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
and the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/programs/medical_concurrentdegree.php also offer a dual degree (MA/PhD) in applied anthropology with a MPH. In the UK, Durham University is known for MSc and PhD programs in Medical Anthropology. A fairly comprehensive account of different postgraduate training courses in different countries can be found on the web site of the Society of Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association http://www.medanthro.net/academic/grad/index.html.
The literature on medical anthropology
Despite the high prevalence of English literatureEnglish literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
on medical anthropology there is an enormous quantity of medical anthropological research available in other languages, in books, or chapters of books and also in periodicals.http://web.mac.com/josepmcomelles/iWeb/REDAM/C5ADFC35-013B-4103-8DC0-99673C0C9480.html
See also
- Critical medical anthropologyCritical Medical AnthropologyCritical medical anthropology is a branch of medical anthropology that applies critical theory in the consideration of the political economy of health, and the effect of social inequality on people's health...
- Cultural ecologyCultural ecologyCultural ecology studies the relationship between a given society and its natural environment as well as the life-forms and ecosystems that support its lifeways . This may be carried out diachronically , or synchronically...
- Culture-bound syndromeCulture-bound syndromeIn medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture...
- Ecological anthropologyEcological anthropologyEcological anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that deals with relationships between humans and their environment, or between nature and culture, over time and space. It investigates the ways that a population shapes its environment and may be shaped by it, and the subsequent manners in...
- Epidemiological transitionEpidemiological transitionIn demography and medical geography, epidemiological transition is a phase of development witnessed by a sudden and stark increase in population growth rates brought about by medical innovation in disease or sickness therapy and treatment, followed by a re-leveling of population growth from...
- EthnomedicineEthnomedicineEthnomedicine is a sub-field of ethnobotany or medical anthropology that deals with the study of traditional medicines: not only those that have relevant written sources Ethnomedicine is a sub-field of ethnobotany or medical anthropology that deals with the study of traditional medicines: not only...
- Medical sociologyMedical sociologyMedical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledges and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural effects of medical practice...
Further reading
The following books present a global panorama on international medical anthropology, and can be useful as handbooks for beginners, students interested or for people who need a general text on this topic.- Aguirre Beltran, G. (1986) Antropologia Médica. México, La Casa Chata.
- Albretch GL, Fitzpatrick R Scrimshaw S, (2000) Handbook of Social Studies in Health and Medicine. London, Sage.
- Anderson, Robert (1996) Magic, Science and Health. The Aims and the Achievements of Medical Anthropology. Fort Worth, Harcourt Brace.
- Baer, Hans, Singer, Merrill, & Susser, Ida (2003)Medical Anthropology and the World System. Westport, CT, Praeger.
- Boixareu, RM (ed.) (2008) De la antropología filosófica a la antropología de la salud. Barcelona, Herder.
- Brown PJ, ed.(1998) Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. Mountain View.
- Comelles, Josep M.; Dongen, Els van (eds.) (2002). Themes in Medical Anthropology. Perugia: Fondazione Angelo Celli Argo.
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External links
- Society for Medical Anthropology
- Medical Anthropology Wiki
- Anthrologica International organisation specialising in applied medical anthropology of healthcare in developing contexts
- Amades French speaking medical anthropology network
- Medical Anthropology at Home A European based medical anthropologist network
- REDAM Spanish medical anthropologist network
- Societa Italiana di Antropologia Medica Fondazione Angelo Celli Italian medical anthropologists network
- EASA's Medical Anthropology Network The Medical Anthropology Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists