How Public Health Could Benefit From Anthropology

1. How Public health could benefit
from anthropology?
DIS - 21. November 2011, Nikolaj Darre

2. Learning objectives
• Discusswhat anthropology is about andhowit
can be useful when working at the arena of
Public Health.
DIS - 21. November 2011

3. Overview
1. Can we catch a cold?
2. Methodology
3. Theory
DIS - 21. November 2011

4. Anthropology
• The study of humankind (Anthro[p] = human,
ology = the study of)
• Social and cultural aspect of humankind
• Medical anthropology = health, sickness and
treatment.
DIS - 21. November 2011

5. Catching a cold is your own fault
by David Aldridge
• A example of how people from different
contexts offering different diagnosis and
different advice.
• Therefore decisions in health care practice are
made according to different meanings and
cultural contexts.
DIS - 21. November 2011

6. Different reasons for cold
• the dust from decorating the house (wife)
• neglects (mother) Nothing to do with
bacterial.
• Hayfever or stress. (work)
DIS - 21. November 2011

7. Different treatments:
• Consume alcohol
• Go home and go to bed
The point: “…different explanations exist
concurrently according to our own world
views, and the ‘patient’ does not always
reflect the epistemological position of the
observers” (p.129)
DIS - 21. November 2011

8. Agreed sickness
• Our experience of being ill needs to be
validated by someone else – in that way it is
‘negotiable’, not fixed and open to change
(p.131).
• The doctor can invalidate the patients
• Shared meaningis important.
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9. Methodology in Anthropology
Qualitative Vs. Quantitative
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10. Fieldwork
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11. Participate observation
Captures not just what you say –
But also what you do!
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12. Interview
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13. Implication using Qualitative methods
Validation and verification
requires
Transparency, transparency and transparency
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14. Theory in Anthropology
• Helps us understand real life
• But, it is also a certain viewpoint in which we
look at things.
• Theory is empirically imbedded
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15. Tough athlete or cripple?
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16. Relativism and
The social fabric of health
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17. Medical traditions
• Chinese medicine, Indian Ayurvedic medicine,
medical traditions of Africa, Western
biomedicine etc.
• Medical pluralism
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18. Views and ideas
• Balance between elements (Asia, Africa)
• Body fluids (Humoral system, Greece)
• Soul loss (Shamanism, America, Africa)
• Dualism between body/soul (Biomedicine)
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19. Ethnocentrism
• People are experts on their own life, therefore
try to understand people in their own context
– use a emicperspective.
• Be aware of contexts (physical, social,
temporal)
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20. Holism
• Try to see things in a bigger perspective
• Remember patients are much more than their
sickness
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21. Theory is Empirical founded

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22. Interdisciplinary
• Not like monotheistic religions, but more like
polytheistic
• Claude Levy-Strauss and Structuralism
– Semiotics have form and substance
– Signifier/Signified
– Social praxis/underlying meaning
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23. Summing up
• Health is everywhere culturally particular and
varied (Janzen 2002:52)
• Se heath, sickness and treatment in a bigger
perspective
• Include context
• Don’t be ethnocentric
• Use qualitative methods if your looking for a
deeper understanding.
• Be reflexive
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24. The end
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