Critical medical anthropology
What is it?
How does it relate to the resolution of health and healthcare problems?
Cultural competency and its role in this field
- It
is defined as "how the distribution of wealth and power and division of
labor affect disease patterns and health care access" (Joralemon 2010:
10).
How does it relate to the resolution of health and healthcare problems?
- By
studying large-scale political, economic and cognitive structures,
critical medical anthropologists can determine how these factors
"constrain individuals' decisions, shape their social behavior, and
affect their risk for disease" (Brown and Barrett 2010: 10).
Cultural competency and its role in this field
- Cultural competency
is "the training of health care providers in basic knowledge about
cultural differences among patients and skills in cross-cultural
communication" (Brown and Barrett 2010: 13).
- By
understanding how a certain group's access to health care and risk for
disease is affected by larger global factors, cultural competence can
help the health care provider better educate the group about these
vulnerabilities, and also help prepare preventative measures in the
future
- By
understanding how a certain group's access to health care and risk for
disease is affected by larger global factors, cultural competence can
help the health care provider better educate the group about these
vulnerabilities, and also help prepare preventative measures in the
future