Medical anthropology studies how cultural, ecological, social, and historical forces affect medicine and health. It draws on various academic disciplines and has developed a specific training program. The field emerged in response to the medical community’s concern about clinical hospital education and has since collaborated with health professionals to introduce effective medical programs.
Medical anthropology is the study of how cultural, ecological, social, and historical forces affect the medicine used in a particular society, as well as how these forces affect individual health, the health of a particular community, and environmental stability in a region . To arrive at accurate conclusions about the role of these forces in medicine and general health, medical anthropology draws on a variety of academic disciplines, including cultural anthropology, linguistics, health care, and biology. Since the development of medical anthropology during the mid-20th century, the field has developed a specific training program for medical anthropologists and a body of literature that all experts in this field should be familiar with. Applications for medical anthropology have emerged that have helped change the way hospitals and primary health care services are introduced into communities, incorporating the impact of the complex cultural and environmental factors present in any given community.
The academic discipline of medical anthropology emerged as a response to the concern of the medical community in Europe and North America about clinical hospital education that was prevalent throughout the first half of the 20th century. Most physicians and other health care practitioners abandoned all recognition of folk medicine and other forms of folk medicine in this period in favor of applying the same standard of medical care, regardless of the patient community the physicians were treating. In the 1920s, European anthropologists and other academics began publishing papers on a topic they called the “anthropology of health” or “anthropology of medicine.” These documents resembled philosophical treatises on the role of anthropology in medicine rather than clear recommendations for a change in the way the medical community approached patient care.
During the 1960s, physicians began to recognize the influence of regional and ethnic forces in health care and began to incorporate some of the findings of early medical anthropologists into their medical practices. The Society for Medical Anthropology was founded in 1967 by a combination of physicians and anthropologists. These professionals wanted to collaborate with the goal of applying academic theories and the findings of medical anthropologists to the care of patients in regions around the world.
In the decades since, medical anthropology has grown into a formal field of study with masters and doctoral programs at some of the most respected academic institutions in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Medical anthropologists have conducted successful educational programs in many nations that have inspired the eventual deinstitutionalization of mental health hospitals and other facilities. Furthermore, cooperation between anthropologists and health professionals has led to the introduction of effective medical programs focused on improving quality of life and finding long-term solutions to local health problems rather than simply providing clinical care.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
