health, healing, disease

Question 1

how does the definition of health vary? WHO def?

Answer 1

• Health: what constitutes health varies across time and space
○ WHO- a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

Question 2

define disease and illness

Answer 2

• Disease- physiological alteration that impairs function
• Illness- the subjective experience of symptoms and suffering
○ e.g. explanatory models and illness narratives

Question 3

what expectations surround sickness?

Answer 3

○ The sick role - expectations for sick individuals

§ Stigma and the sick role (e.g. HIV positive or diabetic)

Question 4

purpose of 3 bodies?

Answer 4

to see individual health as connected to social conditions

Question 5

describe the individual body

Answer 5

1. Individual body - lived experience of the body-self

○ Health as somatic; separation of mind and body

Question 6

describe social body

Answer 6

2. Social body- the seam between the physical body and the social world of the individual
   ○ The ills of the social body come to be treated as diseases of the individual body
   • We can present ideas through our bodies - self expression, profiling, disease risk (due to race/ethnicity), female bodies (ie women talk too much etc)

Question 7

describe body politic (third body)

Answer 7

3. Body politic- the way social and political forces regulate and exert control over individual bodies (e.g. foucault’s biopower, residntial schools)

Question 8

social body and medicalization? cause of disease?

Answer 8

○ The medicalization of conditions that have social roots

Proximate vs ultimate cause of disease - often the social role on disease is ignored

Question 9

what is often equated with health?

Answer 9

Normal tends to be equated with healthy

Question 10

ex. of normal through euro lens?

Answer 10

• e.g. is lactose tolerance normal or abnormal? Eurocentric view - most of the world is lactose intolerant
• “weird people” - western educated industrialized rich developed - seen as normal whereas “developing” are not
○ Normal shifts based on where you are

Question 11

mental illness and normality? how is “normal” defined?

Answer 11

○ Where does normal end and abnormal begin?
○ e.g. mental illness - an abnormal psychological state
• Most often defined on social norms
○ e.g. onanism or drapetomania

Question 12

how is disability defined?

Answer 12

• Disability- non-standard or non-functioning body or body part
○ Body as a machine metaphor
§ Abnormal functioning leads to an abnormal body

Question 13

how is the disabled body viewed

Answer 13

○ Stigmatization and the sick role

○ Can be severe (e.g under eugenics, defective/”unfit babies” allowed to perish)

Question 14

how does body politic relate to disability

Answer 14

○ Abnormality as pathology
• “are only beautiful people healthy?” - body image and the social body
North American toned thinness vs Saharan moors voluptuous immobility

Question 15

theoretical approaches?

Answer 15

• Evolutionary perspectives
• Cultural approaches
Interpretive approaches- ○ e.g. cultural bound syndromes
Applied medical anthropology

Question 16

ex of cultural approaches

Answer 16

○ Political economy of health (critical approaches)
○ Ethnomedical systems
Medical pluralism

Question 17

what are healing systems embedded with

Answer 17

• Healing and healing systems are embedded with symbols and associated meanings
• Reflects cultural values and components
○ E.G. White lab coat

Question 18

what do the symbols shape?

Answer 18

• Further shapes healing rituals
○ Meaning response (e.g. a pill as a symbol of efficacy)
• Diagnosis is an important part of therapy
○ e.g. navajo distinguishing between diagnosticians and healers

Question 19

describe cosmopolitan medicine

Answer 19

Biomedicine or scientific, modern, western medicine

Stresses the value of technology, control over environment, and hierarchical healing roles

Supports control of disease through surgery, drugs, public health measures, and medical research

Question 20

describe humoral medicine

Answer 20

Derived from the philosophy of balance among fundamental qualities of nature

To deal with sickness, restore the body’s equilibrium: hot/cold, wet/dry

Roots in Hippocratic 4 humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile

Question 21

what are the authorities of healers? what if both kinds of authority are strong?

Answer 21

○ Social authority: the ability to bring about the desired behavior in another person
○ Cultural authority: the domain of knowledge & values
• If both are strong the healing system may eliminate other competing systems

Question 22

ex of methods to become a healer

Answer 22

Variety of methods of how to become a healer (pp.49-53)
○ E.g., visitation during a dream among the Mayan Zinacanteco
E.g., the 7th son or daughter in African American communities

Question 23

what are explanatory models? how can it be helpful?

Answer 23

• Different groups of people interpret causes of disease & treatment of illness differently
○ E.g., children’s illness narratives
Understanding explanatory models can reveal how people’s behaviour makes sense in a particular socio-cultural context
• May improve communication between patients & healers

Question 24

three theories to explain illness?

Answer 24

personalistic disease theory, naturalistic disease theory, emotionalistic disease theory

Question 25

describe personalistic disease theory

Answer 25

illness is due to the action of a supernatural agent

Question 26

describe emotionalistic disease theory

Answer 26

illness is due to a negative emotional experience

Question 27

describe naturalistic disease theory

Answer 27

illness is due to an impersonal factor (e.g. pathogen)

Question 28

describe the biomedicine view /biological causation

Answer 28

• Biologically based, positivistic scientific worldview
  
  • Observable and verifiable
  • Developed in a particular place (europe)
  • In a particular time (18th century)
• Biological causes of ill health
  
  • Empirically based view of natural phenomenon

Question 29

describe traditional medical systems / supernatural causation

Answer 29

• Wide range of practices/worldviews
  
  • Developed in diverse cultural settings and ecological contexts
  • e.g. ayurveda or navajo medicine
• Supernatural causes of ill health
  
  • Supernatural agency - spirit or curse- as cause of disease
• Nocebo effect - “hmong sudden death”

Question 30

what are the three theoretical approaches to health systems?

Answer 30

interpretivist approach, critical medical anthropology, ecological/epidemiological approach

Question 31

describe the interpretivist approach to health systems

Answer 31

explores how illness is defined and experienced

assumption: the healing system provides meaning for suffering

Question 32

describe the critical medical anthropology approach to health systems

Answer 32

examine how health systems are impacted by structural elements

Question 33

describe the ecological/epidemiological approach

Answer 33

focus on the interaction of the natural environment and culture in disease causation and spread (public health data)

Question 34

describe the biomedicine approach to the body and healing

Answer 34

• Emphasis on the individual and individual compliance
• Focus on the body and human pathophysiology
  
  • Mechanistic view - treating sickness and disease, not always the patient
• Curing over prevention
  
  • Pharmaceutical - pill as symbolic