ANTH 306: Medical Anthropology
Spring 2014/Dr. Roberts
Midterm study guide/review sheet

Please use this as a guide to help you in reviewing the material we've covered so far. Please don't just go through this list and look for specific answers to the questions in the book. Instead try to think more holistically about the major issues we've covered so far.  Approach the material through the themes identified on the syllabus. Exam questions will be based upon material from the readings in the textbook or online as well as lecture notes and videos we've watched in class.  

What is medical anthropology?

Readings: M + T Pp.34-80; McElroy: Medical Anthropology; Medical Anthropology: The Search for Knowledge.

Videos: Mark Nichter Pathways to Health; Paul Farmer: I believe healthcare as a human right

• Understand and appreciate what medical anthropology is and how it fits into the discipline of anthropology as a whole. (Hint: think subfields).

Evolution & human adaptation.

Readings: M&T Pp. 82-129; Eaton et al: Stone Agers in the Fast Lane; Trevathan: Evolutionary Medicine: An Overview.  Highly recommended: Human Biological Adaptability (especially sections on high altitude and skin color)

Videos: Nina Jablonski on Human Skin Color; Evolving Altitude Aptitude; Hypoxia and adaptation to altitude Audio clip: Fresh Air at 20: Anthropologist Robert Murphy

• What is adaptation and why is this concept so integral to medical anthropology?
• McElroy and Townsend identify four ways that humans can adapt. Understand each of them and how they compare to each other, especially with regard to humans
• Be familiar with the discussion of adaptation to high altitude.
• What is a polymorphism? What are some famous examples and how do they relate to a discussion of adaptation?
• What is Darwinian/evolutionary medicine and what does it offer medical anthropology?
• How do McElroy & Townsend define medical ecology? Be familiar with their profile of Inuit adaptation to arctic conditions.

The ecology of health & disease.

Readings:M&T Pp. 1-32; Batterman et al.: Sustainable Control of Water-Related infectious Diseases. Video: The Water Carriers

• How do McElroy & Townsend define medical ecology? Be familiar with their profile of Inuit adaptation to arctic conditions.
• Be familiar with the following ecological concepts:

  • Environment

  • Ecosystem

  • Niche

  • Carrying capacity

  • Resilience

  • Stability

  • Energy

Demographics & disease

Readings:M&T Pp. 131-167; Ib C. Bygbjerg and Dan Meyrowitsch: Global Transition in Health; Dan Meyrowitsch and  Ib C. Bygbjerg: Global burden of disease a race against time. Video:  Hans Rosling on Global Population Growth

• What is epidemiology? What differentiates epidemic from endemic diseases? Infectious diseases from non-communicable diseases
• What is demography and what processes are of concern for demographic anthropologists?
• Know about the so-called demographic and epidemiological transitions. 
• Be familiar with the examples used in Hans Rosling's video on global human population.
• Be familiar with some salient differences between Paleolithic and Neolithic patterns of health and disease, including fertility and mortality.

Nutritional anthropology

Readings: M&T Pp. 169-215; Stanley J. Ulijaszek and Hayley Lofink: Obesity in Biocultural Perspective.  Video clips: Diabetes Among Native Americans - Genes or Environment?; The relationship between diabetes and water rights for Native Americans in Arizona;  Cultural renewal as a key to better health

• What is nutritional anthropology? 
• What kinds of dietary differences correlate with differences in subsistence patterns and what are the health implications of these dietary patterns?
• What is famine and what are its causes?
• What is malnutrition and what are its causes? What types of forms can it take on?
• How do human nutritional requirements and health change through the life cycle?
• What are the causes & consequences of what McElroy & Townsend call “the obesity epidemic”?
• What factors do Ulijaszek and Lofink identify as being responsible for present obesity patterns?
• Why do Native Americans suffer from such high incidence of Type II, adult onset diabetes? (McElroy & Townsend reading plus the video clips on D2L). 

Reproduction & women's health issues

Readings: M&T pages 218-263; Nancy Scheper-Hughes: Culture, Scarcity and Maternal Thinking; Oxfam Briefing Paper: The Cost of Childbirth. Video: Birth of a Surgeon; Video clips: How Secret Mothers Make Childbirth Safer;  Peru creates a special place for expectant mothers to wait; Dead women walking (fistulas in Tanzania)

• Be familiar with McElroy and & Townsend's comparisons of pregnancy and birth management in different cultural contexts.
• Be aware of our species-specific reproductive patterns.
• Know the differences between fecundity and fertility as well as factors affecting both.
• Think about McElroy and &Townsend's discussion of social support systems and their impact on reproductive patterns.
• Know what couvade is.
• Think about the issues of maternal mortality and disability (morbidity) in light of the video Birth of A Surgeon as well as Scheper-Hughes articles Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking.
• How are programs like those in Malawi, Peru, and Tanzania helping pregnant women or women who have recently given birth?

Culture & Disability

Readings: Reid-Cunningham: Anthropological Theories of Disability; Battles, Toward Engagement: Exploring the Prospects for an Integrated Anthropology of Disability; Ingstad et al. The Evil Circle of Poverty: A Qualitative Study of Malaria and Disability; Goldin & Scheer: Murphy's Contributions to Disability Studies;  Videos: We are Also Women (young women with intellectual disabilities in Madrid, Spain); All-Human Zoo ("dwarf theme park" in China); In the Eye of the Beholder – the Diane DeVries Story (life history of a woman who born without arms or legs); I will probably use one more short video on poverty and disability on Tuesday.

• How did the study of disability develop within anthropology?
• What are some of the criticisms that have been made of anthropology in general and its particular subfields with regard to the study of disability?  
• What role has the life history method played in anthropological contributions to the study of disability?
• How does an emic approach factor into the study of disability?
• Why is deviance relevant to an understanding of disability?
• What role does stigma play in the lives of people with disabilities?   
• What do anthropologists mean by “the other” and how is this relevant to the study of disability?
• What does the acronym TAB stand for and why is it important?
• Why does Heather Battles assert about a political economic approach to the study of disability?
• What do Ingstad et al. conclude with regard to the link between poverty, malaria, and disability?