Medical Anthropology

Question 1

Medical anthropology

Answer 1

the study of disease and illness in their sociocultural context.

Question 2

Focuses of medical anthropology

Answer 2

factors in the social environment that determines risk of disease, the definition of health and illness relative to ethnomedical belief systems, and systems of healing

Question 3

How does the placebo effect relate to cross-cultural methods of healing

Answer 3

spirit surgeries in Brazil: performing surgeries that heal instead of cure without medical training

Question 4

Illness

Answer 4

an ailment as perceived by the sufferer

Question 5

Disease

Answer 5

scientifically defined ailment

Question 6

Curing

Answer 6

the removal of disease and return to homeostasis/allostasis

Question 7

Healing

Answer 7

the processes of addressing and alleviating illness

Question 8

What is the difference between illness and disease?

Answer 8

disease is the deviation from the norms of biological or physiological functioning, illness is the human experience of disvalued states, physical or mental, as these are culturally defined

Question 9

Ethnomedicine

Answer 9

study of traditional medicine practiced by various ethnographers, anything other than biomedicine, etc., the health related beliefs, knowledge, and practices of a cultural group

Question 10

What factors influence treatment choice?

Answer 10

ethnomedical beliefs, access to treatment, experience with other treatments

Question 11

What is the balance theory of health and illness?

Answer 11

the body should be kept in equilibrium or balance.

Question 12

Personalistic disease theories

Answer 12

blaming illness on supernatural agents such as sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits

Question 13

Naturalistic disease theories

Answer 13

explain illness in impersonal terms

Question 14

Emotionalistic disease theories

Answer 14

assume emotional experiences cause illness (e.g., susto among Latino populations)

Question 15

Susto

Answer 15

When a nonmaterial essence from the body becomes detached during sleep or after suffering a fright. This essence is either held captive by supernatural forces or wanders freely outside the body

Question 16

Biomedicine

Answer 16

The dominant medical paradigm in Western societies today. Biomedicine focuses on specific diseases and cures for those diseases. Health is not the focus, as it is thought to be the absence of disease

Question 17

Schistotomes/schistomasis

Answer 17

Parasitic flatworms that cause schistomasis, 200 million people infected. The infection can last for years, causing intestinal, lung damage, eggs can travel to the brain, damage spinal cord

Question 18

What are the four categories of techniques used cross culturally by healers?

Answer 18

naming process, personality of the doctor, curing techniques, patient’s expectations

Question 19

How is the experience of “healing voices” differentially addressed across cultures

Answer 19

Our culture considers it a mental illness, in other cultures it is considered a gift because you can speak to spirits