Introducing Medical Anthropology: A Discipline in Action

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.

About the Author:
Merrill Singer is the chief of research at the Hispanic Health Council in Hartford, Connecticut

About the Author:
Hans Baer is a lecturer in the School of Social and Environmental Enquiry and the Centre of Health and Society at the University of Melbourne