This new text provides students with a first exposure to the growing field of medical anthropology. As such, it is guided by three unifying themes. First, medical anthropology is actively engaged in helping to address pressing health problems around the globe through research, intervention, and policy-related initiatives. Second, illness and disease cannot be fully understood or effectively addressed by treating them solely as biological in nature; rather, health problems involve complex biosocial processes and resolving them requires attention to range of factors including systems of belief, structures of social relationship, and environmental conditions. Third, through an examination of health inequalities on the one hand, and environmental degradation and environment-related illness on the other, the authors emphasize the need for a comprehensive medical anthropology that integrates biological, cultural, and social factors, in order to understand the origin of ill health and to contribute to more effective and equitable health care systems.

Author Biography

Merrill Singer is a medical anthropologist at the Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention, University of Connecticut. He is the author or co-author of ten books, including Unhealthy Health Policy and Medical Anthropology and the World System. Hans Baer is a lecturer in the School of Social and Environmental Enquiry, and the Centre of Health and Society at the University of Melbourne. His books include Encounters with Biomedicine: Case Studies in Medical Anthropology, Toward an Integrative Medicine, and Medical Anthropology and the World System.