The Enemy Within: Culture and Health Behavior

Course Description

This seminar will acquaint students with the major social, cultural, and behavioral phenomena that affect our reactions to variations in our health. Students will move from a knowledge of basic human universal psychological processes to the social and cultural factors shaping our perceptions of health. This constitutes the basic conceptual framework and theories of social science field of medical anthropology. With this conceptual foundation, the rest of the semester will be spent investigating the impact of culture on health and health care. Concurrent with the conceptual material the use of Rapid Appraisal (RA) will be introduced and mastered. Teams of four students will select a health condition/issue immediate to their domiciliary unit (dorm, apartment complex, fraternity/sorority house), e.g., intimate partner violence/date rape, drugs, sleep deprivation, etc. These teams will then spend the rest of the semester researching/ discussing their topic and conducting a Rapid Appraisal of it in their particular setting, and writing a “scope/solution” paper. Each team’s product will be discussed and appraised by the rest of the group. Assessment will focus on application and synthesis of medical anthropology concepts, with writing the focus of examinations and papers. The following are some of the questions we will explore: How do we decide whether we are healthy/ill? Why is “normal” health culture-specific? How does culture influence human perception? How does culture contribute to disparities in health? How can medical anthropological concepts and methods be used to assess a health issue? Prereq: None. Registration with consent of the course instructor.

Code

BSC 251

Credits

3

Subject

Behavioral Science

Programs That Include This Course

• Undergraduate Certificate Undergraduate Certificate in Medical Behavioral Science