health, healing, disease Flashcards
how does the definition of health vary? WHO def?
• 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
define disease and illness
• Disease- physiological alteration that impairs function
• Illness- the subjective experience of symptoms and suffering
○ e.g. explanatory models and illness narratives
what expectations surround sickness?
○ The sick role - expectations for sick individuals
§ Stigma and the sick role (e.g. HIV positive or diabetic)
purpose of 3 bodies?
to see individual health as connected to social conditions
describe the individual body
- Individual body - lived experience of the body-self
○ Health as somatic; separation of mind and body
describe social body
- 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)
describe body politic (third body)
- Body politic- the way social and political forces regulate and exert control over individual bodies (e.g. foucault’s biopower, residntial schools)
social body and medicalization? cause of disease?
○ The medicalization of conditions that have social roots
Proximate vs ultimate cause of disease - often the social role on disease is ignored
what is often equated with health?
Normal tends to be equated with healthy
ex. of normal through euro lens?
• 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
mental illness and normality? how is “normal” defined?
○ 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
how is disability defined?
• Disability- non-standard or non-functioning body or body part
○ Body as a machine metaphor
§ Abnormal functioning leads to an abnormal body
how is the disabled body viewed
○ Stigmatization and the sick role
○ Can be severe (e.g under eugenics, defective/”unfit babies” allowed to perish)
how does body politic relate to disability
○ Abnormality as pathology
• “are only beautiful people healthy?” - body image and the social body
North American toned thinness vs Saharan moors voluptuous immobility
theoretical approaches?
• Evolutionary perspectives
• Cultural approaches
Interpretive approaches- ○ e.g. cultural bound syndromes
Applied medical anthropology
ex of cultural approaches
○ Political economy of health (critical approaches)
○ Ethnomedical systems
Medical pluralism
what are healing systems embedded with
• Healing and healing systems are embedded with symbols and associated meanings
• Reflects cultural values and components
○ E.G. White lab coat
what do the symbols shape?
• 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
describe cosmopolitan medicine
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
describe humoral medicine
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
what are the authorities of healers? what if both kinds of authority are strong?
○ 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
ex of methods to become a healer
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
what are explanatory models? how can it be helpful?
• 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
three theories to explain illness?
personalistic disease theory, naturalistic disease theory, emotionalistic disease theory
describe personalistic disease theory
illness is due to the action of a supernatural agent
describe emotionalistic disease theory
illness is due to a negative emotional experience
describe naturalistic disease theory
illness is due to an impersonal factor (e.g. pathogen)
describe the biomedicine view /biological causation
- 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
describe traditional medical systems / supernatural causation
- 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”
what are the three theoretical approaches to health systems?
interpretivist approach, critical medical anthropology, ecological/epidemiological approach
describe the interpretivist approach to health systems
explores how illness is defined and experienced
assumption: the healing system provides meaning for suffering
describe the critical medical anthropology approach to health systems
examine how health systems are impacted by structural elements
describe the ecological/epidemiological approach
focus on the interaction of the natural environment and culture in disease causation and spread (public health data)
describe the biomedicine approach to the body and healing
- 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
