Medical Anthropology: A Biocultural Approach - Softcover

Wiley, Andrea S.; Allen, John S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195308832 ISBN 13: 9780195308839

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Medical anthropology encompasses a wide range of perspectives as it seeks to understand human health and illness. An ideal core text for introductory courses, Medical Anthropology: A Biocultural Approach provides a current and accessible overview of this diverse and rapidly expanding field. Working from a Biocultural approach, Medical Anthropology examines the major health issues that affect most human societies, describing and synthesizing the ways in which biology, culture, health, and environment interact. It integrates up-to-date and relevant biological data with analyses of both evolutionary theory and the sociocultural conditions that often lead to major challenges to our health and survival.
Authors Andrea S. Wiley and John S. Allen first present basic biological information on a specific health condition and then extend their investigation to include evolutionary, historical, sociocultural, and political-economic perspectives. Topics covered include healers and healing; health, diet, and nutrition; child health, growth, and development; reproductive health; aging; infectious disease; behavioral disease; stress, social inequality, and race; and mental illness. Each chapter features a variety of case studies and examples--current and historical, local and global--that demonstrate how a medical anthropological perspective can shed important light on a particular health condition. In addition, the text is enhanced by numerous tables, figures, review questions, critical thinking questions, suggestions for accompanying ethnographies, and a glossary to help students better understand the material. Throughout the text, the authors consider how a biocultural anthropological approach could be applied to more effective prevention and treatment efforts. They also highlight the ways in which medical anthropology has the potential to help improve the health of populations around the world.

About this title

About the Author:

Andrea S. Wiley is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Human Biology Lab at Indiana University. She is the author of An Ecology of High-Altitude Infancy: A Biocultural Perspective (2004) as well as numerous articles in medical anthropology and related fields.

John S. Allen is Research Scientist at the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center and the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, where he is also Adjunct Research Associate Professor of Anthropology. He is a coauthor of Biological Anthropology: The Natural History of Humankind, Second Edition (2008).

Review:

"This text takes on the major medical issues that affect most human societies and shows their relevance in our own culture. I think this will attract students to the field of medical anthropology, as well as illustrate the importance of an anthropological/biocultural perspective in
understanding the health of all people, including those in the US. This could be very powerful for students who plan to study medicine."

--Barbara Piperata, Ohio State University

"Unusually clear descriptions of important definitions and processes. . . I would definitely like to adopt this text."

--Christina von Mayrhauser, California State University, Northridge

"This text is very accessible and relevant to students outside of anthropology and I believe would be a more effective tool for demonstrating the interaction of culture, health, and the environment."

--Jonathan Maupin, Vanderbilt University

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0195308832
• ISBN 13: 9780195308839
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 459