Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Singer, Merrill.

Publication

Lanham, MD : AltaMira Press, [2007], ©2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Baer, Hans A., 1944-

Description

v, 246 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"This 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Health Status Disparities
• Anthropology, Physical
• Medical anthropology
• Social Medicine
• Environmental Health

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-233) and index.

Contents

1. Why have a medical anthropology? -- 2. What medical anthropologists do -- 3. What is health? : experiencing illness, knowing disease -- 4. Ethnomedicine : the worlds of treatment and healing -- 5. Plural medical systems in the contemporary world : complexity, complementarity, and conflict -- 6. Health disparity, health inequality -- 7. Health and the environment : toward a healthier world.

ISBN

• 9780759110571 (hardback : alk. paper)
• 0759110573 (hardback : alk. paper)
• 9780759110588 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0759110581 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

2007013895

OCLC

• ocn122701707
• 122701707
• SCSB-8877906

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries