Introducing Medical Anthropology: A Discipline in Action, 2nd Edition

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. PrefaceChapter 1: Introduction to Medical AnthropologyChapter 2: What Medical Anthropologists DoChapter 3: Understanding Health, Illness, and DiseaseChapter 4: Ethnomedicine: In the Worlds of Treatment and HealingChapter 5: Medical Pluralism in the Contemporary WorldChapter 6: Health Disparity and Health InequalityChapter 7: Health and the Environment: Toward a Healthier WorldGlossaryReferencesResource Materials for StudentsIndex Introduction To Medical Anthropology -- What Medical Anthropologists Do -- Understanding Health, Illness, And Disease -- Ethnomedicine : The Worlds Of Treatment And Healing -- Medical Pluralism In The Contemporary World -- Health Disparity, Health Inequality Health And The Environment : Toward A Healthier World. Merrill Singer And Hans Baer. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 249-281) And Index. 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 This new edition introduces students to the growing field of medical anthropology. It reviews the basic perspectives and concepts and the latest debates in the field in a more comprehensive fashion than many other comparable works.