Medical Anthropology: A Biocultural Approach / Edition 2

by Andrea S. Wiley, John S. Allen

Overview

An ideal core text for introductory courses, Medical Anthropology: A Biocultural Approach, Second Edition, offers an accessible and contemporary overview of this rapidly expanding field. For each health issue examined in the text, the authors first present basic biological information on specific conditions and then expand their analysis to include evolutionary, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives on how these issues are understood. Medical Anthropology considers how a biocultural approach can be applied to more effective prevention and treatment efforts and underscores medical anthropology's potential to improve health around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199797080
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/29/2012
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Dr. Andrea Wiley received her B.A. in Biological Basis of Behavior from University of Pennsylvania; M.A.'s in Demography and Anthropology from University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD in medical anthropology from University of California-Berkeley & UC San Francisco in 1992. Her interests are in the areas of maternal and child health, nutrition, demography, adaptation, and human life history. She has conducted long-term fieldwork in India, both in the Himalaya (the topic of her first book, An Ecology of High Altitude Infancy; Cambridge University Press, 2004) and now in Pune, where she is conducting research on the relationship between milk consumption and child growth. She is also author of Re-Imagining Milk (Routledge, 2011) and working on a new comparative book on milk in India and the U.S. She is currently Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Human Biology Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.

Dr. John S. Allen received his BA in Anthropology and Molecular Biology, and his MA and PhD in Anthropology from U.C. Berkeley. After completing a postdoc working on the neurogenetics of Alzheimer disease at Stanford University, he joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He subsequently worked as a neuroscience researcher at the University of Iowa, where he also taught medical anthropology. He is currently a research scientist in the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center and the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California. His primary research interests are the evolution of the human brain and behavior and behavioral disease. He has conducted fieldwork in Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Palau. He has received awards for his teaching both as a graduate student instructor at U.C. Berkeley and as a faculty member at the University of Auckland. He is the co-author (with Craig Stanford and Susan Ant�n) of the popular text, Biological Anthropology: The Natural History of Humankind (3rd edition, Pearson, 2012). He is also the author of The Lives of the Brain: Human Evolution and the Organ of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2009) and the forthcoming The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship with Food (Harvard University Press, 2012).

Table of Contents

Preface
A Biocultural Approach to Medical Anthropology
What Is Distinctive about This Text
What's new in this edition
Outline of the Book
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction
What is Anthropology?
The Development of Medical Anthropology
What is Medical Anthropology?
The Culture Concept
A Biocultural Perspective
Looking Ahead

Chapter 2: Anthropological Perspectives on Health and Disease
Definitions of Health
Disease
Illness
Anthropologist in Action: Arthur Kleinman
Sickness
Health, Ethics, and Cultural Relativism
The Locus of Health: The Body and Society
Biological/Medical Normalcy
Evolutionary Perspectives on Health
Adaptability
Behavioral Adaptability
Cultural Approaches in Medical Anthropology
Political Economy of Health
Ethnomedical Systems
Interpretive Approaches to Illness and Suffering
Applied Medical Anthropology
Epidemiology
Conclusion

Chapter 3: Healers and Healing
Culture and Healing Systems
Living Longer with Cystic Fibrosis
Recruitment: How Healers Become Healers
Alternative and Complementary Medicines
Acupuncture
Chiropractic
Navajo Medicine
When Biomedicine Is Alternative Medicine
Alternative Biomedicines
Death as a Biocultural Concept
Harnessing the Power of the Placebo
Placebo and Nocebo
Conclusion

Chapter 4: Diet and Nutrition in Health and Disease
Fundamentals of Nutrition
How are Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) constructed?
Digestive Physiology
An Evolutionary Approach to Nutrition
Scurvy in Evolutionary Perspective
Ascertaining Diet and Nutritional Status from Ancient Bones
Cavities
C3 versus C4 in Bones
Anthropologist in Action: Ellen Messer
Nutrition and Chronic Diseases
Obesity
Diabetes
Sugar and High-Fructose Corn Syrup in Biocultural Perspective
Lactose Intolerance
Celiac Disease
Conclusion

Chapter 5: Growth and Development
Life History Theory
Gestation: The First 40 Weeks of Growth and Development
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Birth Weight in the Mountains
Infancy
Childhood
Small but Healthy?
Anthropologist in Action: Gretel Pelto
Is Bigger Better?
Does Milk Make Children Grow?
Puberty and the Onset of Adolescence
Teenage Pregnancy in the United States
Sex, Gender, Growth, and Health
Environmental Toxins and Growth
Conclusion

Chapter 6: Reproductive Health in Biocultural Context
Medicalization of Women's Health and Reproductive Health
Menstruation
Oral Contraceptives and Biological Normalcy
Premenstrual Syndrome
Determinants of Fertility
Infertility
Falling Sperm Counts: Environmental Causes of Male Reproductive Health Problems
The Medicalization of Male Sexual Dysfunction
Female Genital Cutting
Anthropologist in Action: Ellen Gruenbaum
Pregnancy
Humoral Medicine: Concepts of Hot and Cold
Birth
Mothering
Cosleeping and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Menopause
Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer Risk
Conclusion

Chapter 7: Aging
The Aging Body
Physiological Theories of Aging
Somatic Mutations
Free Radicals
Wear and Degeneration
Evolutionary Theories of Aging
The Aging Brain
Alzheimer Disease, Genes, and Evolution
Extending Life? Caloric Restriction and an Okinawa Case Study
Health, Illness, and the Cultural Construction of Aging
Conclusion

Chapter 8: Infectious Diseases: Pathogens, Hosts, and Evolutionary Interplay
Koch's Postulates
Taxonomy of Infectious Disease
Viruses
Bacteria
Protozoa
Fungi
Worms
Prions
How Pathogens Spread
Human Defenses against Pathogens
To Treat or Not to Treat
The Immune Response: A Brief Overview
Vaccination: How Does It Work?
The Language of Immunity
Human-Pathogen Co-Evolution
Malaria: a post-agricultural disease
Evolutionary changes in pathogens
Antibiotic Resistance
Variation in Pathogen Virulence
Allergies and Asthma: Relationship to Infectious Disease Exposure?
The Hygiene Hypothesis
The Helminth Hypothesis
Anthropologist in Action: David Van Sickle and managing asthma
Conclusion

Chapter 9: Globalization, Poverty, and Infectious Disease
Emergent and Resurgent Diseases
Social Transformations, Colonialism, and Globalizing Infections
Smallpox
Colonization in the Tropics
Colonialism's Health Legacy
Climate Change and Emerging/Resurging Diseases
Cholera
Genetic Adaptation to Cholera
Dams and Infectious Disease
Tuberculosis: Emerging and Resurging
HIV/AIDS: A New Disease
Bushmeat Hunting and the Emergence of Human Diseases
Anthropologist in Action: Paul Farmer and HIV in Haiti
Conclusion

Chapter 10: Stress, Social Inequality, and Race and Ethnicity: Implications for Health Disparities
Biology of the Stress Response
The Nervous System Stress Response
The Hormonal Stress Response
Why Is Stress Different for Humans?
Stress and Biological Normalcy
Stress and Health
Cardiovascular Disease
Immune Function
Medical Anthropologist in Action: Nancy Schoenberg
Child Growth
Inequality, Stress, and Health
Relative Status
Social Cohesion
Social Support
Race and Ethnicity and Health in the United States
BiDil and "Racial Medicine" in the United States
Conclusion

Chapter 11: Mental Health and Illness
The Medical Model in Biocultural Context
Culture-Bound Syndromes
A French Culture-Bound Syndrome
Eating Disorders
ADHD and Culture
Mood Disorders
Depression
Bipolar Disorder and Creativity
The Evolution of Substance Use and Abuse
Schizophrenia
An Ethnography of Futility
Conclusion

Epilogue: The Relevance of Medical Anthropology
What Can I Do Next if I Am Interested in Medical Anthropology?
Graduate Programs in Anthropology
Public Health Programs
Medical Schools and Clinical Health Professions
Work in Governmental and Nongovernmental Health Agencies

References

Editorial Reviews

"Medical Anthropology makes it evident that the human illness experience necessitates an understanding from a non-biological perspective, and reading it will change the way many students view human health and illness."—Helen Cho, Davidson College

"Medical Anthropology is very accessible and relevant and stands as an effective tool for demonstrating the interaction of culture, health, and the environment."—Jonathan Maupin, Vanderbilt University

From the Publisher