商品簡介
McElroy and Townsend (both of the State U. of New York at Buffalo) present the fifth edition of their text introducing the field of medical anthropology. Their aim is to bring together the varied strands of medical anthropology--ethnographic studies of illness beliefs, curing rituals, and herbal medicines; study of the role of disease and climate as factors in human evolution; work on cross-cultural communication in public health; and study of human relationships to their environments in contemporary settings and in the past--using an ecological model and the concept of medical ecology. They present chapters on the ecology of health and disease; interdisciplinary research in health problems; genes, culture, and adaptation; changing patterns of disease and health; the ecology and economics of nutrition; culture, ecology, and reproduction; stress, illness, and healing; health resources in changing cultures; costs and benefits of development; and medical anthropology practices in the 21st century. Interspersed throughout are 16 "profiles" (five new to this edition): case studies that illustrate points made in the rest of the text through examples of current research in medical anthropology, with examples including demographic analysis of census data in post-Soviet Siberian villages, focus group research with inner-city teens in urban Connecticut, and a team project designed to reduce the rates of cholera in rural Ecuador. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
作者簡介
Ann McElroy is associate professor of anthropology at University at Buffalo, SUNY.
Patricia K. Townsend is a research associate professor at University at Buffalo, SUNY.