Medical Anthropology (ANG 6737)

I neglected to remind you in class yesterday that your annotated bibliographies are due next Tuesday in class. From the syllabus:

An annotated bibliography with at least 10 carefully selected references from the scholarly literature is due on Oct. 2. The references should clearly relate to your paper topic. Your annotations should briefly evaluate the content of the source and identify how, it at all, it will contribute to your research paper. Consult the guidelines for how to identify scholarly sources and how to make an annotated bibliography in the Guide to Library Research from Cornell University.

The UF Libraries has a useful web page about citation style guides. It’s not important to me which citation style you use, so long as you use it correctly and consistently. One good option would be to use the American Anthropological Association style. Other good alternatives include the Chicago Manual of Style or APA style.

If you have questions about this assignment, please leave a comments here on the blog.

As you know, on Tuesday you are required to submit a 250-300 word proposal defining the topic of your research paper. Please bring six copies of your proposal to share with classmates in your peer review groups.

Developing a well-defined problem is the key to a successful research paper. As you finish your proposal, keep in mind that a research problem is more than just a topic. Whereas a topic identifies some general phenomenon (e.g., Native American healing traditions), a research problem raises interesting questions of theoretical or practical value (e.g., How do contemporary Native American healing traditions interact with biomedicine?). Your paper will be more fun to write (and to read) if you tackle a specific research problem than it will be if you address a broad, ill-defined topic.

Begin to narrow your focus by doing some exploratory reading on a topic that interests you. You may find that the course readings are a good place to start. As you read, take note of exciting ideas or unresolved puzzles, and try to formulate interesting “what,” “how,” or “why” questions about your topic. Do a preliminary literature search early on to make sure that you’ll have enough—but not too much—material to draw on.

The paper proposal should identify the problem and articulate why it is important. Try to relate your problem to the broader themes of the course, and indicate how you plan to approach the problem.

Many university libraries have useful suggestions for finding appropriate research topics. See, for example, this page at the Cornell University Library.

In class yesterday, you worked through the ways that medical anthropologists from different theoretical perspectives might approach the study of obesity. Some of you took on the role of ecological or evolutionary anthropologists; others became critical medical anthropologists; still others applied an interpretive perspective.

A recent story on NPR provides a perfect follow-up to our discussion. The story deals with the causes and consequences of dietary change on the Greek island of Crete over the last 60 years. There’s a lot to chew on (so to speak). What strikes you most about the story? How do the major theoretical perspectives we discussed apply to this case?

Yesterday in class I mentioned a study that has been in the news this week about the links between mother’s diabetes during pregnancy and their children’s risk of obesity five to six years later. This study is the latest in a growing body of research that shows how health is influenced by early-life experiences, including exposures in utero and even in previous generations.

This work draws on life course epidemiology and on research in developmental plasticity and health. It’s a thoroughly interdisciplinary field and has a new professional society to show for it. This area of research is fertile ground for biocultural approaches to medical anthropology, because it helps us to understand how sociocultural factors impact human biology over the life course and even across generations.

Of course, news coverage of this week’s study focuses narrowly on the links between gestational diabetes and children’s subsequent weight. It doesn’t address the sociocultural factors that put women at risk of developing gestational diabetes in the first place. Where would you begin to look for answers to that question?

Next week (Sept. 4), we’ll meet at Library West for the first hour of class. We will start at the usual time (12:50 p.m.) in Library West, Room 212. Note that this is a slight change from the schedule I announced in class. Dr. Dan Reboussin will provide an overview of key library resources for researching and writing your term paper this semester. I expect to see you all there.

In our first meeting on Tuesday, I defined medical anthropology as the study of health and healing in cross-cultural and evolutionary perspective. How do others define the field?

On its website, the Society of Medical Anthropology offers an extended definition and identifies some topics that medical anthropologists work on. Here’s an excerpt:

Medical Anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that draws upon social, cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology to better understand those factors which influence health and well being (broadly defined), the experience and distribution of illness, the prevention and treatment of sickness, healing processes, the social relations of therapy management, and the cultural importance and utilization of pluralistic medical systems.

Read the full description on the SMA web page. How does it differ from the expectations about medical anthropology you had before enrolling in the class? What strikes you as different or similar about the way SMA defines the field and the way I presented it in class on Tuesday? Which of the topics listed on the SMA website excite you most? Any leads for your research paper?

Today’s New York Times has a short article about racial inequalities in exposure to tobacco advertising. The article is based on a new paper (PDF; subscription required) in Public Health Reports by Brian Primack and colleagues.

Among other things, Primack et al. identified five peer-reviewed studies that provided enough information to compute the density of tobacco advertisements by race. Pooling across these studies, Primack and colleagues found that there were 11.8 tobacco advertisements per 10,000 African American residents (95% CI 5.0-28.3), as compared to 4.5 per 10,000 white residents (95% CI 1.3-15.2). In other words, there were 2.6 times as many tobacco advertisements in predominantly black neighborhoods as there were in white ones. The confidence intervals on these estimates are large, mainly because one study of Boston neighborhoods observed a relatively small racial disparity. But even that study showed that tobacco advertisements are concentrated in predominantly poor, African American, and Latino neighborhoods.

This new paper by Primack and colleagues is important, because we know from other studies that smoking is the leading cause of disease burden in the United States. Primack and colleagues’ meta-analysis hints at how institutional racism shapes the distribution of disease in ways that people often overlook.

The PDF version of the syllabus has been updated to correct a couple of errors spotted by students. Thanks for paying close attention!

Welcome to the website for Culture and Medicine (ANT 4462) and Medical Anthropology (ANG 6737). To get started, I suggest you follow the links to the syllabus and course readings. Students registered for the course should have received an email with a username and password that provides access to PDFs of required readings. If not, please contact me. I encourage all students to subscribe to the RSS feed for the course. I’ll update the site frequently to let you know about relevant news and events, to share useful resources, and to stimulate your thinking about assigned readings and activities. I look forward to the semester!