Doing Health Anthropology

What is the relationship between health, human nature, and human needs?
The impact of social change on communities?
The processes by which communities confront and overcome their health problems?
How do we study these health questions in new communities and become advocates for change?

These are critical questions in confronting the social causes of ill health, yet many health students do not have the appropriate training in the anthropological methods and techniques that help answer them. Christie Kiefer has written Doing Health Anthropology to prompt students to enter the community already prepared in these methods so that they can accurately ask and solve these important questions themselves.

Using this book as a guide, students learn to integrate cultural anthropology with health science and come to their own conclusions based on field research. The book includes common pitfalls to avoid when conducting interviews and observations, and ways to formulate and answer research questions, maintain field notes and other records, and correctly analyze qualitative data.

With the help of this text, practitioners and students alike will be able to integrate cultural anthropology methods of research into their health science investigations and community health initiatives.

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