Medical Anthropology: Methods and Practice

Medical anthropology seeks to understand how health, illness and healing practices are culturally constructed and mediated. Students will investigate global, cross-cultural and local issues related to health, sickness, healing, epidemiology, aging and dying from an applied and bio-cultural perspective, using anthropological theory and ethnographic fieldwork methods. Students will be exposed to diverse cultural interpretations of health, sickness and healing, the importance of viewing medical systems as social systems, understanding the socio-cultural context of medical decision making and therapy management, the principles of cultural competency, and the recurrent and ongoing problems of socioeconomic inequality and ecological disruptions that have an impact upon the differential distribution and treatment of human diseases.