Medical Anthropology

as Public Health perspectives…

Mamun Md Abdullah Al (K2)

Dept. of Public Health & Informatics,
Jahanginagar University.
Former Student dept. of Psychology,
University of Dhaka.
Email: mamunphi46@gmail.com
Or, atmalmamun@gmail.com
FB: www.Facebook.com/atmabdullahalmamun
 Today’s Aims of presentation

• Expilan Medical Anthropology.

• Evolutionary History of it.
• Insights that give to rise it.
• Factors of diseases according to it.
• Diseases Theories according to It.
• Aspects of it in Public Health’s field… …
 Medical anthropology

Medical anthropology studies "human health and disease, health care

systems, and bio-cultural adaptation“.

that examines the ways in which culture and society are organized
around or influenced by issues of health, health care and related
issues in the view of body and lifecycle from childhood to old age.

It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives.

 Benjamin David Paul (1951)-
a Stanford University
professor whom many
consider the founding father
of Medical Anthropology
 Evolutionary History of Medical
Anthropology
1. 1940’s = Ethnobotany: documenting indigenous people’s medical beliefs
Ex. Native Brazilians knowledge of Amazonian plant and bark properties

2. 1950’s = Medical Anthropology: International Health relationships & western biomedicine &
development
Ex. Western medicine and antibiotics will help developing nations (i.e. tb cure in
1952)

3. 1960’s = Ethno-medicine: different cultures practice different kinds of medicine

Ex. Non-western medicines & practices are worth understanding

4. 1970’s = Psychological anthropology: what does illness mean to individuals

Political economy: who gets ill and why
5. 1980’s = Body Politics: what is the relationship between national politics & the body
Ex. During WWII, the physically fit & able body was the nationally appropriate
body (Eugenics & Nazism)

6. 1990’s = Critically “applied” medical anthropology

Ex. Farmer’s work as an MD & anthropologist- “illness narratives” = your story, your
words, your experience with illness (“patient histories” which protect the hospital)

7. 2000’s = Using anthropological lens as a tool to examine medical situations as they intersect issues of social
justice-
Ex. organ transplants, pharmaceutical industry, health in prisons, etc.
 Three insights that give to rise it…
1. GPs/psychiatrists/ and other health professionals saw that:
Sickness/Illness/disease is not only a biological event.

2. Anthropologists of Religion saw that:

Ritual informs not only on myth but actually has a transformative effect
on the individual practising it.

3. Sociologists of knowledge saw that:

Basic assumption of Western medicine are culturally constructed, and
some currents within medical anthropology question those.
4 Factors That Form The Processes Of Disease
according to Medical Anthropology

Human biology

Systems of beliefs

Relationship of social structure

Enviro conditions
 Diseases theories of Medical
Anthropology
Personalistic disease theories – illness caused by agents such as
sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits
Naturalistic disease theories – impersonal explanations of illness
(e.g., Western biomedicine attributes illness to organisms,
accidents, or toxic materials)
Emotionalistic disease theories – illness caused by emotional
experiences (e.g., susto in Latin America)
Medical Anthropology deals with in Public Health’s
field…

 Health ramifications of ecological “adaptation and

maladaptation”
 Popular health culture and domestic health care practices
 Local interpretations of bodily processes
 Perceptions of risk, vulnerability and responsibility for
illness and health care
 Risk and protective dimensions of human behavior,
cultural norms and social institutions
 Preventative health and harm reduction practices
The experience of illness and the social relations of sickness
 The range of factors driving health, nutrition and health care
transitions
 Medical practices in the context of modernity, colonial, and
post-colonial social formations
The use and interpretation of pharmaceuticals and forms of
biotechnology
 Disease distribution and health disparity
 The political ecology of infectious and vector borne diseases,
chronic diseases and states of malnutrition, and violence
And so on… … …
Any Questions…
Thank You…

K2 Production