Anthropology and midwifery
Patricia Lindsay, Ian Peate in Introducing the Social Sciences for Midwifery Practice, 2015
Medical anthropology is the study of health, illness and healing across a variety of human societies (Janzen, 2002). Anthropology delves deeply into a culture using ethnography to study peoples and culture with participant observation as its key method of collecting data (Bowling, 2014). It can then present findings that are compared with other societies with differing cultural values and norms. Key themes can be discovered using cross-cultural analysis, the ‘exotic can be brought to the familiar’ (Helman, 2007). The development of such knowledge through cross-cultural analysis can inform the study of childbirth within the UK. The needs of care, patience and support, for example, are similar between women in childbirth from dissimilar societies and ethnographic research can provide a means by which different ways of providing such care can be shared.
Vital Signs
Lenore Manderson, Elizabeth Cartwright, Anita Hardon in The Routledge Handbook of Medical Anthropology, 2016
In the introduction to this volume, in passing we referred to our roles in the practical application of medical anthropology, and from this, the important development of rapid assessments and focused ethnographic manuals. This was linked in part to the task of integrating anthropological methods and interests within collaborative research, but also to aiding the translation of our work into practice. This move partly reflected the interests of epidemiologists, clinicians and other health professionals of how ‘culture’ affected clinical consultations, hospitalization, health communication, and community participation in public health interventions. It reflected, too, ethical concerns about the value of our research to the people with whom we worked, and the expanding environments in which anthropologists were working outside of the academy: local governments and national health ministries, development aid programs and development banks, non-governmental organizations, community services and multilateral agencies. Anthropology had an important role, we demonstrated, in both local and international settings to ensure that policies, programs and protocol were appropriate to the setting (Whiteford and Manderson 2000; Whiteford and Whiteford 2005).
Goffman, interactionism, and the management of stigma in everyday life
Graham Scambler in Sociological Theory and Medical Sociology, 1987
The work on stigmatizing illness conditions and the range of research interests is vast. For example Schneider and Conrad (1980, 1981) and Scambler (1984; Scambler and Hopkins 1986) have focused on the problems of perceiving and coping with epilepsy, while Higgins (1980) has done the same for deafness. Rief (1975) has shown how ulcerative colitis sufferers develop strategies to manage embarrassing incidents in social interaction and the constraints on their time imposed by the illness itself. Birenbaum (1970) and Hilbourne (1973) have developed Goffman’s work on ‘managing a courtesy stigma’ and ‘disabling the normal’ respectively. Scott (1969, 1970) has studied the role of health agencies and bureaucracies in the construction and moulding of particular conceptions of blindness and the socializing effect they have upon their clients. Also there have been some interesting developments within the field of medical anthropology. Hopper (1981) has studied how diabetes, itself stigmatizing, has certain consequences which are themselves stigmatizing such as special diet, impotence, amputations, blindness, and unemployment. Ablon (1981) has looked at the role of a self-help group in the USA involved in the destigmatization of dwarfism, and Knudson-Cooper (1981) has studied the problem of psychosocial adjustment to severe burn injuries in childhood. To this may be added Hunt’s (1966) collection of autobiographical essays concerning stigmatization of handicapped people.
Medical anthropology and epidemiology: a collaborative venture for mental health research in India
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2021
Chittaranjan Subudhi, Ramakrishna Biswal
Medical anthropology is the study of health and disease within a cultural context. The Society for Medical Anthropology states that ‘it is a subfield of anthropology that draws upon social, cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology to better understand those factors which influence health and wellbeing (broadly defined), the experience and distribution of illness, the prevention and treatment of sickness, healing processes, the social relations of therapy management, and the cultural importance and utilization of pluralistic medical systems’ (American Anthropological Association). Medical anthropology allows the researchers to examine the dominance of culture on the health of the individuals in a society and their environment by the interrelationship between the human and other species. It is a discipline concerned with biological and socio-cultural aspects of human behaviour and their influence on health and disease in a particular society over a time period (Foster & Anderson, 1978; Helman, 1997). Helman (2007) has defined medical anthropology in the following words:
Negative impact of litigation procedures on patient outcomes four years after severe traumatic brain injury: results from the PariS-traumatic brain injury study
Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2018
Eléonore Bayen, Claire Jourdan, Idir Ghout, Pascale Pradat-Diehl, Emmanuelle Darnoux, Gaëlle Nelson, Claire Vallat-Azouvi, James Charenton, Philippe Aegerter, Alexis Ruet, Philippe Azouvi
Recommendations for future research include first attempting to assess the honesty of patient’s reporting in a structured and objective manner. Second, ethnographic data and case reports using medical anthropology approaches could provide us a deeper understanding of these results that could be further tested on larger datasets. Third, retesting the long-term effect of LP in the ongoing 10 years follow-up of PariS-TBI patients as well as replicating the study in other settings and cohorts of patients seems necessary. Fourth, transdisciplinary working groups including expert attorneys, health professionals as well as patients with TBI and family associations could support more investigations regarding the dynamics of recovery in the case of possible conflicting interests due to the context of compensation, the core issue being how to ensure right financial compensation without limiting recovery. Finally, the discussion of how litigation may affect persons with TBI differently in various countries taking into account national specificities and jurisdiction schemes will also be of interest for the scientific community.
Livelihood intervention and mental well-being among women living with HIV in Delhi
Published in AIDS Care, 2021
Kalei R.J. Hosaka, Ezer Kang, James Huff, Sheeba Shaw, Savita Duomai
Following a standard ethnographic approach situated in the field of cultural anthropology and interpretive medical anthropology, data were analyzed in the context of participation, observation, informal conversations, and relationships over a period of six months (Holmes, 2006; Scheper-Hughes, 1990). KH regularly coded and systematically analyzed fieldnotes and interviews. Over a period of three months, KH and senior authors weekly analyzed fieldnotes and written interview transcripts. These findings were carefully discussed as a team, which shaped ongoing generation and exploration of themes.
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