Medical Anthropology increases our perceptive of health-related beliefs and behaviors of all kinds, from the precise products of science to the silent rituals of culturally scripted healing. Anthropological research on social and cultural processes in the arena of health has both theoretical and practical utility addressing many of the central quandaries of the human condition: from social suffering and institutional inequality to chronic pain, warfare, and everyday violence. Over the years, a growing need has developed for interdisciplinary training, which relates socio-cultural systems and patterns of human variation to physical and mental health problems. Within the last quarter century, the rapid pace of social change migration, urbanization and technological advances in medicine has created new problems in the provision of health care to large sectors of the population. These changes have seemingly promised a better quality of medical care, yet, in fact, socio-economic, ethnic, age, gender, and other inequalities in health care delivery continue. It is becoming widely recognized now that ethnic and class differences, among others, affect both access to health services and relationships with the medical establishment. With this realization has come an urgent need for research, training and program planning and evaluation relating socio-cultural factors to the control of disease and the maintenance of health. As a sub disciplines of anthropology the study of both socio-cultural and physical aspects of humans and human groups medical anthropology is in an unparalleled position to make positive contributions toward the understanding and resolution of many of these problems. (Baer H.A., Singer M. & Susser I., 1997)
There are at present about 1700 members of the Society for Medical Anthropology, a sub-unit of the American Anthropological Association, and the interest and concern in research and instruction in this field are increasing daily. Despite the rapid growth of the field, and the......
