Introducing Health Anthropology

A Discipline in Action, Fourth Edition

Merrill Singer; Hans A. Baer; Debbi Long and Alex Pavlotski

With a new title that reflects the broad scope and primary concerns of the field, Introducing Health Anthropology: A Discipline in Action, Fourth Edition, provides students with a first look at the dynamic discipline of medical and health anthropology.The narrative is guided by four unifying themes. First, health anthropologists are heavily involved in the process of helping to better understand and change the world through their work in applied projects, policy initiatives, and advocacy.Second, the book presents the fundamental importance of culture and social relationships in health and sickness by demonstrating that experienced illness and diagnosed disease involve complex biosocial processes and that resolving them requires attention to a range of factors beyond biology.Third, through an examination of health inequality, the book highlights the need for research and analyses that move beyond cultural or even ecological models of health toward comprehensive and holistic biosocial frameworks. Finally, the authors emphasize that physical and mental health are intimately related to the health of the environment on which humans depend for air, food, and the other resources that make life possible. Introducing Health Anthropologygives students the tools to rethink how to achieve healthier populations, effective and fully accessible healthcare systems, and a sustainable world.

New to this Edition:

New Chapter 4, “Human Evolution and Health,” examines the respective roles of genetics and sociocultural factors in health to navigate the welter of public misinformation on genetic determinism, race, and sex and gender minorities
Significantly expanded discussion of reproductive health, sex and gender, and gender equity throughout the book reflects current and controversial issues in the U.S.
Up-to-date examination of the relationship of climate change to health and social wellbeing offers students insights on how our physical world is changing and the causes of those changes
Discussion of the global impact of COVID-19 throughout the text explores the enduring changes wrought by the pandemic on human societies

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 370 • Trim: 7½ x 9¼

978-1-5381-8727-2 • Hardback • March 2025 • $150.00 • (£115.00)

978-1-5381-8728-9 • Paperback • March 2025 • $54.00 • (£42.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Anthropology / Physical, Social Science / Disease & Health Issues

Courses: Anthropology; Medical Anthropology

Introducing Health Anthropology

A Discipline in Action, Fourth Edition

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

With a new title that reflects the broad scope and primary concerns of the field, Introducing Health Anthropology: A Discipline in Action, Fourth Edition, provides students with a first look at the dynamic discipline of medical and health anthropology.The narrative is guided by four unifying themes. First, health anthropologists are heavily involved in the process of helping to better understand and change the world through their work in applied projects, policy initiatives, and advocacy.Second, the book presents the fundamental importance of culture and social relationships in health and sickness by demonstrating that experienced illness and diagnosed disease involve complex biosocial processes and that resolving them requires attention to a range of factors beyond biology.Third, through an examination of health inequality, the book highlights the need for research and analyses that move beyond cultural or even ecological models of health toward comprehensive and holistic biosocial frameworks. Finally, the authors emphasize that physical and mental health are intimately related to the health of the environment on which humans depend for air, food, and the other resources that make life possible. Introducing Health Anthropologygives students the tools to rethink how to achieve healthier populations, effective and fully accessible healthcare systems, and a sustainable world.
New to this Edition:
- New Chapter 4, “Human Evolution and Health,” examines the respective roles of genetics and sociocultural factors in health to navigate the welter of public misinformation on genetic determinism, race, and sex and gender minorities
- Significantly expanded discussion of reproductive health, sex and gender, and gender equity throughout the book reflects current and controversial issues in the U.S.
- Up-to-date examination of the relationship of climate change to health and social wellbeing offers students insights on how our physical world is changing and the causes of those changes
- Discussion of the global impact of COVID-19 throughout the text explores the enduring changes wrought by the pandemic on human societies

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 370 • Trim: 7½ x 9¼

978-1-5381-8727-2 • Hardback • March 2025 • $150.00 • (£115.00)

978-1-5381-8728-9 • Paperback • March 2025 • $54.00 • (£42.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Anthropology / Physical, Social Science / Disease & Health Issues

Courses: Anthropology; Medical Anthropology

Author

Merrill Singer is professor emeritus in the Departments of Anthropology and Community Medicine at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Singer has published 290 scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, and has authored, co-authored or edited thirty-three books. His research and writing have addressed syndemics, HIV/AIDS and STDs in highly vulnerable and disadvantaged populations, illicit drug use and drinking behavior, infectious disease, community and structural violence, and the political ecology of health, including the health consequences of climate change. Dr. Singer has been awarded the Rudolph Virchow Professional Prize, the George Foster Memorial Award for Practicing Anthropology, both the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group’s Distinguished Service Award and its Clark Taylor Professional Paper Prize, the Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America, and the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association.
Hans A. Baer is principal honorary research fellow in the School of Social Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Hans was a Fulbright Scholar in at Humboldt University in East Berlin in the German Democratic Republic in 1988-1989. He has taught at several US universities, including George Peabody College for Teachers, St. John’s University, the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of California - Berkeley, Arizona State University, and at two Australian universities, namely the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Hans has published twenty-seven books and some 240 book chapters and articles on a diversity of research topics, including Mormonism, African American religion, sociopolitical life in East Germany, critical health anthropology, medical pluralism in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, the critical anthropology of climate change, Australian climate politics, and the political economy of higher education. His most recent books are Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Real Utopia (2018), Climate Change and Capitalism in Australia: An Eco-Socialist Vision for the Future (2022), The Corporatization and Environmental Sustainability of Australian Universities: A Critical Perspective, and Building the Critical Anthropology of Climate Change: Towards a Socio-Ecological Revolution (with Merrill Singer).
Debbi Long is an honorary senior lecturer in the Wollotuka Institute (Indigenous Studies) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is a critical health anthropologist and a pioneer of hospital ethnography in Australia. She has undertaken health ethnography in Turkey, Eswatini, and in a variety of public hospital contexts in Australia, including maternity, spinal, intensive care and dialysis units. She has worked as a consultant in clinical organization and management on projects including quality improvement, patient safety, behaviour change, and in industrial relations contexts. Other research includes family violence education and workplace injury compensation analysis. She has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in anthropology departments, international development programs, medical, nursing and allied health programs and in Indigenous studies. including foundation and support programs. Debbi is a qualified Permaculture designer and educator, and recent projects involve a focus on food security, circular economies and sustainable building, heavily informed by traditional Indigenous knowledges.
Alex Pavlotski works as a health anthropologist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne. He specializes in using visual methods in research, co-design methodologies, ethnography, and anthropological teaching. Alex has worked in teaching and research with LaTrobe University, the University of Auckland, the University of Melbourne, and Monash University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction to the Anthropology of Health
Encountering Health Anthropology
Practical and Theoretical Contributions of Health Anthropology
Defining Health Anthropology
History of Health Anthropology
The Relationship of Health Anthropology to Anthropology and to
Other Health-Related Disciplines
Health Anthropology Theories
Chapter 2. What Health Anthropologists Do and How They Do It
A Case Study
What Health Anthropologists Study
Conducting Research: A Peculiarly Anthropological Approach
Research Methods: The Anthropological Approach to Knowledge
Generation
Health Anthropology in Use
The Health Anthropology Crystal Ball
Chapter 3. Understanding Health, Illness, and Disease
Conceptions of Health and Illness
Sufferer Experience
Illness Narratives
Embodied Health Experience
Healer versus Sufferer Conception of Disease
One Word, Two Meanings
Chapter 4. Human Evolution and Health
The Roots of Evolutionary Health
Linkages, Trade-Offs, and Thrifty Genes
Migration and the Genetics of Health
The Out-of-Africa Intrusion
Living in the Clouds
Epigenetics
Socioeconomic Factors
The Genetics of Sexuality
Chapter 5. Ethnomedicine: The Worlds of Treatment and Healing
Approaching Ethnomedicine
Indigenous and Folk Medicine Systems
An Evolutionary Model of Disease Theories and Healing Systems
Biomedicine as the Predominant Ethnomedicine in Modern Societies
Chapter 6. Plural Medical Systems: Complexity, Complementarity, and Conflict
Typologies of Plural Medical Systems
New Directions in the Study of Medical Pluralism
Chapter 7. Health Disparity, Health Inequality
What Is Health Disparity?
Health Disparity in the United States
Gasping for Breath
Causes of Health Disparity: Lifestyle versus Social Inequality
Biology of Poverty
Insuring Disease
Culturally Competent Care
Health and Social Disparities Cross-Culturally
Addressing Health Disparities
Pushing Back on Health Disparities
“Race” and Health Disparity
Chapter 8. Health and the Environment: Toward a Healthier World
Medical Ecology and Critical Health Anthropology on the
Environment
Health and the Environment in the Past
Health and the Environment Today
The Political Ecology of Cancer
The Impact of Private Motor Vehicles on Health
The Impact of Airplanes on Health
The Political Ecology of AIDS: Assessing a Contemporary Syndemic
Chapter 9. The Biopolitics of Life: Biotechnology, Biocapital, and
Bioethics
Critical Health Anthropology and Biotechnology
Science, Nature, and Culture
Reproductive Technologies
Bringing the Lab into the Field: Anthropology and the Neurosciences
Molecular Biotechnologies: Tiny Pieces, Giant Infrastructures
The Story of HGH—Growing up Growth Hormone
The Culture of PCR
Visualization Technologies
When Technologies Combine
Ancestry, Families, and Genetics: Biotechnology and Belonging
Chapter 10. Strategies and Visions for a Healthier World
Global Capitalism
Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Pathway for a Healthier World
Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Pathway to Planetary Health
How to Go from A to B
Health Anthropology as an Action-Oriented Endeavor
Source Material for Students
Glossary
References
Index

Features

- Introduces students to health-related issues by analyzing them in a broader context through the integration of biological, social, and cultural factors of health and illness
- Applied approach engages students by framing health anthropology as a discipline in action
- Case Studies provide real-world applications and allow students to develop a deeper understanding of the content
- Discussion Questions at the end of every chapter help reinforce the topics covered throughout the chapter.

Resources

FOR STUDENTS
Accompanying the text is an open-access Companion Website designed to reinforce the main topics and help you master key vocabulary and concepts through flashcards and self-graded quizzes.
FOR PROFESSORS
Ancillary Materials are available for this title. For access to these professor use only materials, please Sign-In if you are a registered user, or Register then email us at rltextbooks@bloomsbury.com