Medical Anthropology Intro
What are the four sub-disciplines of US anthropology?
Archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology
What is the difference between public health and global health?
Public health focuses on the health of populations, while global health is an area of study and practice that aims at achieving health equity for all people worldwide
What case study did we use to understand the concept of 'structural vulnerability'?
What is special about the Amazon rainforest?
The most biodiverse ecosystem on Earth and world's largest rainforest, home to 1 million Indigenous community members (about 400 groups, each with its own language, culture, and territory)
What is the "great epidemiological divide"?
A concept that describes the gap in health and longevity between two groups of people in the world - one that generally fares well and dies of diseases associated with old age, and one that dies much earlier from diseases that are curable
Biocultural Approach
What is PIH (Partners in Health)?
A global health organization that works in partnership with the WHO to deliver quality healthcare to marginalized communities around the world
Explain the concept of 'embodiment'
What were some of the pros and cons of the Interoceanic highway in Peru/Bolivia/Brazil?
Cons: More processed foods, conflicts over land, substance abuse, increases in infectious diseases
Who coined the term 'structural violence'?
Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung
What is participant-observation?
Researchers participate in people's lives, observing and taking field notes. Along with interviews and surveys, this constitutes anthropological data
What is an explanatory model of illness?
A patient's belief about their illness - including personal and social meaning, expectations, and therapeutic goals - a culturally shaped process that can affect treatment and relationships with healthcare providers
Describe the difference between positivism and interpretivism
Positivism: Everything can be studied objectively using the methods of the natural sciences to identify general laws, regularities, or causal relationships
Interpretivism: Anything to do with humans should be interpreted through local meaning, context, and lived experience
What is revolutionary about Pope Francis & Laudato Si?
Francis challenges traditionally anthropocentric categories used in CST and he considers Earth a category of the poor and vulnerable
What are 'anthropogenic environments'?
Environments that have been modified by human activity, either directly or indirectly
Define holism and dynamism
Holism: Interconnections (like between biology and culture)
Dynamism: Change over time
What are lentiviruses?
Viruses that tend to cause disease slowly (such as HIV)
What is Margaret Lock's concept of 'local biologies'?
An ongoing dialectic between biology and culture in which both are contingent - biology is more socially contingent than we often think it is
What is 'ecological conversion'?
A transformation in how humans relate to Earth and creation
What is MDR-TB/how is it different from TB?
A type of tuberculosis caused by bacteria that are resistant to at least two of the most effective TB drugs (isoniazid and rifampin)
Give an example of marginalization
Lack of healthcare and social services on Native American reservations
What kind of drug is HAART?
A protease inhibitor (It prevents HIV from making copies of itself and limits how much virus is in the body)
What are the five domains of water insecurity?
Access, Affordability, Adequacy, Safety, Reliability
What is the 'technocratic paradigm' that Pope Francis speaks of in Laudato Si?
Explain Nancy Krieger's 'Ecosocial Theory'
A multitiered explanatory model to understand the repeating of biological and cultural intertwining at all levels from cells to society - health is more intensively shaped by or ecological and social worlds than we might think it is