Understanding And Applying Medical Anthropology

The editors of the third edition of the seminal textbook Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology bring it completely up to date for both instructors and students. The collection of 49 readings (17 of them new to this edition) offers extensive background description and exposes students to the breadth of theoretical, methodological, and practical perspectives and issues in the field of medical anthropology. The text provides specific examples and case studies of research as it is applied to a range of health settings: from cross-cultural clinical encounters to cultural analysis of new biomedical technologies and the implementation of programs in global health settings. The new edition features: • a major revision that eliminates many older readings in favor of more fresh, relevant selections; • a new section on structural violence that looks at the impact of poverty and other forms of social marginalization on health; • an updated and expanded section on “Conceptual Tools,” including new research and ideas that are currently driving the field of medical anthropology forward (such as epigenetics and syndemics); • new chapters on climate change, Ebola, PTSD among Iraq/Afghanistan veterans, eating disorders, and autism, among others; • recent articles from Margaret Mead Award winners Sera Young, Seth Holmes, and Erin Finley, along with new articles by such established medical anthropologists as Paul Farmer and Merrill Singer.

This collection of 49 readings with extensive background description exposes students to the breadth of theoretical perspectives and issues in the field of medical anthropology. The text provides specific examples and case studies of research as it is applied to a range of health settings: from cross-cultural clinical encounters to cultural analysis of new biomedical technologies to the implementation of programs in global health settings.

This collection of readings exposes students to the breadth of theoretical viewpoints and issues in the field of medical anthropology. The text provides specific examples and case studies of research as it is applied in a range of health settings - from clinical encounters to preventive services to international health.

This third edition of Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology, thoroughly updated and including 17 new selections and articles written for this volume on such themes as Ebola, PTSD, autism, and obesity, remains the seminal textbook in the field.

This anthology of readings exposes students to the breadth of theoretical viewpoints and issues in the field of medical anthropology. It provides specific examples and case studies of research as it is applied in a range of health settings, from clinical encounters to preventive services to international health.

Culture and Health offers an overview of different areas of culture and health, building on foundations of medical anthropology and health behavior theory. It shows how to address the challenges of cross-cultural medicine through interdisciplinary cultural-ecological models and personal and institutional developmental approaches to cross-cultural adaptation and competency. The book addresses the perspectives of clinically applied anthropology, trans-cultural psychiatry and the medical ecology, critical medical anthropology and symbolic paradigms as frameworks for enhanced comprehension of health and the medical encounter. Includes cultural case studies, applied vignettes, and self-assessments.

Now in its fourth edition, Exploring Medical Anthropology provides a concise and engaging introduction to medical anthropology. It presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion, highlighting points of conflict and convergence. Concrete examples and the author’s personal research experiences are utilized to explain some of the discipline’s most important insights, such as that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease and that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering. The text has been thoroughly updated for the fourth edition, including fresh case studies and a new chapter on drugs. It contains a range of pedagogical features to support teaching and learning, including images, text boxes, a glossary, and suggested further reading.

This revised textbook provides students with a first exposure to the growing field of medical anthropology. The narrative is guided by unifying themes. First, medical anthropology is actively engaged in helping to address pressing health problems around the globe through research, intervention, and policy-related initiatives. Second, illness and disease cannot be fully understood or effectively addressed by treating them solely as biological in nature; rather, health problems involve complex biosocial processes and resolving them requires attention to range of factors including systems of belief, structures of social relationship, and environmental conditions. Third, through an examination of health inequalities on the one hand and environmental degradation and environment-related illness on the other, the book underlines the need for going beyond cultural or even ecological models of health toward a comprehensive medical anthropology. The authors show that a medical anthropology that integrates biological, cultural, and social factors to truly understand the origin of ill health will contribute to more effective and equitable health care systems.