Reading Response 5: Health and Medicine
In response, I hope to discuss the sub-specialty of medical anthropology from all sub-fields. As articulated in the paper, societies construct beliefs about what are the causative agents of disease and illness based on their cultural beliefs. Further, it is noted that social set up and activities define how people perceive various diseases and their causes. For example, in hunting and gathering communities, it is believed that the primary cause of infection is extensive travel from one place to another. Another case is that the spread of malaria is linked to high population growth in a particular geographical area. Anthropologist forwards that cultural factors such as circumcision have led to the widespread of HIV infection in African continents.
I concur with the author’s idea that the solution to the most common diseases that come up every day is continuous research. I think that due to the constant mutation of the pathogens, the best way to solve the infection problems is to conduct constant research. This will produce new ideas and medication to prevent the spread of diseases. About health and medicine, the article highlights various infections that trouble human beings’ lives, their causes, and remedy. The paper addresses how the practice of anthropology can be used to find concrete solutions to dynamic and mutating diseases, causing micro-organism (Kenner, 2018). Focusing on medical solutions to disease, this paper analyses how people can prevent infections. In my response, I think that the authors touched the essential part of the solution, which is to prevent the infections rather than to cure. As argued in the article, prevention is better than cure, and therefore people need to focus on prevention rather than curing the illness.
References
Kenner, Alison (2018). Public health car escapes for climate change. In Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change, 149-176. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.