Medical Anthropology A Biocultural Approach

Intended as the primary text for introductory courses on medical anthropology, this book integrates human biological data relevant to health and disease with both evolutionary theory and the social environments that more often than not produce major challenges to health and survival. Becausestudents who take this fastest-growing anthropology course come from a variety of disciplines (anthropology, biology, especially pre-med students, and health sciences, especially), the text does not assume anything beyond a basic high-school level familiarity with human biology and anthropology. Theauthors first present basic biological information on a particular health condition and then expand their analysis to include evolutionary, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives. Among the topics covered are nutrition, infectious disease, stress, reproductive health, behavioral disease, aging,race/racism and health, mental health, and healers and healing.