Introducing medical anthropology : a discipline in action / Merrill Singer and Hans Baer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Singer, Merrill.

Contributor:

Baer, Hans A., 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medical anthropology.

Physical Description:

v, 246 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : AltaMira Press, [2007]

Summary:

This new text provides students with a first exposure to the growing field of medical anthropology. It is structured around three unifying themes. First, medical anthropology is actively engaged in helping to address pressing health problems around the world 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 a range of factors, including systems of belief, structures of social relationships, and environmental conditions. Third, through an examination of health inequalities on one hand, and environmental degradation and environment-related illness on the other, the authors emphasize the need for a comprehensive medical-anthropology that integrates biological, cultural, and social factors in order to understand the origin of ill health and to contribute to more effective and equitable health care systems.

Contents:

Why have a medical anthropology?

What medical anthropologists do

What is health? : experiencing illness, knowing disease

Ethnomedicines : the worlds of treatment and healing

Plural medical systems in the contemporary world : complexity, complementarity, and conflict

Health disparity, health inequity

Health and the environment : toward a healthier world

Source material for students.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-233) and index.

ISBN:

9780759110571

0759110573

9780759110588

0759110581

OCLC:

122701707