Exam 17: Health and Illness

In societies with occupational specialization, __________ may be asked to convey messages or requests for healing to higher powers.

Why do the poor often have more exposure to disease than wealthier people?

In their study of Maya ethnomedicine, Elois Ann Berlin and Brent Berlin have shown that __________.

What factors do medical anthropologists think we need to consider if we are to reduce the suffering in human life?

Which are perhaps the most important medical practitioners in societies lacking full-time occupational specialization?

Do people in your own society have any beliefs regarding the role of supernatural forces in health and illness? Give examples, and compare these to cross-cultural patterns identified by medical anthropologists.

Why is the ritual aspect of many ethnomedical traditions so perplexing to westerners?

For most women in the world today, what is the biggest risk factor for becoming infected with HIV?

Compare and contrast the methods used by physicians and shamans.

Which illness is thought of as a "culture-bound syndrome"?

Which of the following must be balanced in the ethnomedicine of many Latin American and Caribbean cultures?

As it stands today, the medical profession cannot tell us __________.

Why is health generally not the focus of the biomedical paradigm?

Which is an example of a major cultural shift in a U.S. medical practice over time?

Consistent with the biomedical paradigm, physicians tend to treat patients __________.

Patients with __________ education are __________ likely to seek alternatives to physicians.

In socially stratified societies, the relative frequency of many diseases, health problems, and death rates varies directly with what factor?

In a cross-cultural study of 139 societies, George P. Murdock found __________ societies that did not have the belief that gods or spirits could cause illness.

Which of the following is an example of cultural practices that cause biomedical treatments to be ineffective?

Lack of adequate nutrition usually results in what conditions for children?