Deck 8: The Body: Biocultural Perspectives on Health and Illness

Question 1

Edward B. Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan proposed that biology explained why indigenous peoples in Africa, Australia, or the Americas had such modest toolkits to work with in comparison to Europeans and white Americans, suggesting

A) it was a matter of "hardwiring" in our genes.
B) that the bodies and minds of "primitive" people were more highly developed than people from European stock
C) all peoples everywhere are exactly the same biologically.
D) the bodies and minds of "primitive" people were not as developed as people from European stock

Answer 1

D

Question 2

What subfield of anthropology tries to understand how social, cultural, biological, and linguistic factors shape the health of human beings in different cultures?

A) medical anthropology
B) linguistic anthropology
C) psychological anthropology
D) biological anthropology

Answer 2

A

Question 3

An explanation given for medicalizing the nonmedical is

A) the growth in profits for insurance and pharmaceutical companies
B) to increase the prestige of physicians
C) the desire of people to see social problems in scientific terms
D) all of the above

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Koro, a condition unique to Chinese and South Asian cultures in which an individual believes her nipples-or in a male, his external genitalia-are shrinking is an example of

A) medical pluralism
B) context-specific medicalization
C) a culture-bound syndrome
D) the individual subjectivity of illness

Question 5

It is suggested in the text that the appearance of some mental illnesses are showing up in other countries where they did not previously exist, and this may be the result of

A) social media
B) immigration
C) globalization
D) better medical documentation

Question 6

Health and illness

A) can readily be objectively measured by doctors with the right equipment
B) form a straightforward concept well understood by physicians
C) are stable and unchanging across the world
D) have much variation throughout different cultures and societies

Question 7

When a doctor observes a patient's symptoms and prescribes a treatment that he or she thinks will act directly on the patient's body to cure the problem, the doctor is adopting which kind of treatment process?

A) medicalization
B) clinical therapeutic process
C) symbolic process
D) persuasion

Question 8

Breastfeeding was universal in the United States until baby formula was developed when?

A) 1920s
B) 1930s
C) 1950s
D) 1970s

Question 9

Nearly all societies draw on more than one medical tradition simultaneously, a process which is called

A) medicalization
B) the sick role
C) symbolic treatment
D) medical pluralism

Question 10

When a person's family and friends become deeply involved in the recovery of the individual from an illness, it is a form of

A) social networking
B) alternative medical practice
C) social support therapeutic process
D) a variant of the placebo effect

Question 11

The symbolic therapeutic process can involve all the things listed below except

A) taste
B) touch and massage
C) drumming and singing
D) herbal remedies

Question 12

The work of Paul Farmer in Haiti to combat AIDS revealed much more than the underlying problems inherent in the clinical pathology and transmission of the disease, including

A) the connection between health and socioeconomic and political conditions there
B) how outside aid was a complete failure in helping the recovery effort
C) the extent to which corruption had severely exacerbated the problem
D) the way in which foreign investment had created the conditions for the original problem to take root

Question 13

Anthropologists work to bridge the divide between biology and culture by considering the __________.

Question 14

The experience of illness is shaped by __________.

Question 15

Medical anthropologists refer to __________ as the psychological and social experience a patient has of __________.

Question 16

The __________ is a form of persuasion in which patients believe they are taking a strong medication but they are actually taking an inert tablet, such as a sugar pill.

Question 17

One of the ways that Kuna myths are employed in a difficult birth is to help the mother and unborn infant relax; this is an example of a __________ therapeutic process.

Question 18

Medical anthropologists refer to whatever impairs the human body in physiological ways as , which is typically the domain of healthcare professionals

Question 19

Only people outside of Western Europe and the United States engage in medical pluralism.

Question 20

According to anthropology, health and illness are objective states.

Question 21

The prestige and social authority doctors enjoy is relatively new.

Question 22

Major advances in health taken for granted today were mostly improvements in preventing diseases.

Question 23

The full appreciation of the human condition today requires that we try and avoid thinking about our bodies and our health as either cultural or biological and instead focus on human begins as biocultural beings.

Question 24

While the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973, the same classification of homosexuality as "abnormal" label continued to allow the U.S. government to reject immigrants. The classification of homosexual individuals as abnormal is an example of

A) medicalization
B) abuse
C) changing definitions of illness and disease
D) poor judgement

Question 25

Illness is an experience that is

A) subjective
B) shaped by culture
C) exacerbated by class differences
D) all of the above

Question 26

What is the "subjectivity of illness"?

A) the idea that diseases cannot be measured objectively
B) how people understand and experience their condition on a personal level
C) the process of testing that determines if a patient is really sick or not
D) the effort to blame people for their own sickness

Question 27

According to Nancy Scheper-Hughes, anthropologists have a moral obligation to

A) remain neutral in all contexts
B) practice cultural relativism
C) focus critically on the power relations shaping the health of marginalized people
D) all of the above

Question 28

Medical anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler found that in Mali schistosomiasis, a condition caused by a liver parasite, caused the release of blood into the urine. Malian men understood this condition as which of the following?

A) a disease that could cause death
B) a marker of the transition into puberty
C) a marker of immoral behavior
D) a life-threatening illness with no cure

Question 29

When anthropologist Robert Welsch had a very high fever from malaria in Papua New Guinea, why did the Ningerum villagers want to take him to the health center many miles away?

A) they were trying to nurse him back to health
B) they were trying to distract him from his symptoms
C) they did not want to be suspected of bewitching him with sorcery
D) they were curious about his strange illness

Question 30

A good example of the process of medicalization is found in the changing understanding of which of the following conditions as a "disease"?

A) diabetes
B) alcoholism
C) homosexuality
D) HIV

Question 31

What is an "explanatory model" of a disease like cancer?

A) a simplified physical model of the body with all the organs affected by the cancer identified in it
B) a general approach to explaining the incidence of cancer among various groups
C) a biological theory that explains why certain people get cancer and others do not
D) a general explanation held by individual patients and their families that accounts for the patient's symptoms, the causes of these symptoms, and how to best treat the cancer

Question 32

In the clinical trials of the pharmaceutical drug naproxen, patients often felt better not as the result of the drug itself, but because they were given

A) an existing pain reliever
B) a placebo
C) symbolic therapeutic treatment
D) a wide range of different drugs

Question 33

Which of the following activities or behaviors is part of the American sick role?

A) they are free from the obligation to go to work or school because they are sick
B) they are expected to seek medical care from a professional or family caregiver
C) they are free from blame for their sickness
D) all of the above

Question 34

According to medical anthropologists Csordas and Kleinman, the several therapeutic processes that bring healing include which of the following?

A) clinical processes
B) symbolic processes
C) social support
D) all of the above

Question 35

Nancy pulled her back out and went to see a chiropractor, an orthopedic surgeon, and an acupuncturist. Which of the following practices was she engaging in?

A) medicalization
B) the placebo effect
C) medical pluralism
D) the social support therapeutic process

Question 36

When a mental illness is unique to a culture, it is referred to as a __________.

Question 37

The culturally defined agreement between patients and family members to acknowledge that the patient is legitimately sick is called the __________.

Question 38

Kleinman's notion of the __________ helped medical anthropologists realize both the limitations and social power of scientific and medical knowledge.

Question 39

Epidemiologists misunderstood the transmission patterns of AIDS in East Africa because they assumed it would spread locally around small neighborhoods when in fact it had rapidly spread long distances, traveling along highways via __________ and __________.

Question 40

Ezekiel Kalipeni demonstrated that the spread of HIV in East Africa could be explained in terms of traditional patterns of African sexuality.

Question 41

The definition of abnormal is based on accepted social norms.

Question 42

As a general rule, people rarely worry about conditions that are considered common.

Question 43

Mental illness is by and large the same in all cultures.

Question 44

Anthropological attempts to understand the nature of mental illness, often considered universally the same across cultures, have meant that such studies

A) require the fieldworker to have good mental health
B) require proficiency in medical terminology
C) require an approach to mental illness that is culturally relative
D) enlist the help of remote mental health professionals

Question 45

Zak Kaufman's work with Grassroots Soccer demonstrates that the best way to convey public health information is

A) to frame it as scientifically neutral information
B) to deliver it in a setting where people are most likely to "hear" it
C) to have medical professionals deliver the information
D) to circulate it via social media

Question 46

Rebecca Seligman's examination of Candomblé mediums revealed that it was achieved through a combination of factors including an ability to achieve trance states, conditions of poverty, and social reward, all of which was uncovered because of her

A) exacting fieldwork
B) mastery of local language
C) use of a holistic perspective
D) becoming a medium

Question 47

If a medical anthropologist like Arthur Kleinman were to turn his attention to studying the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, he would likely want to understand

A) how local people interpret the symptoms of Ebola, its causes, and its threat
B) what was necessary in terms of protective clothing and sanitation to limit the spread of the disease
C) how capable were the resources of West African nations to deal with the epidemic
D) statistical analyses of the rates of recovery from the disease

Question 48

Ethical rules for research with human subjects require that researchers be honest with patients in a study about what drugs are being given to them. This ethical premise limits research to study the efficacy of which of the four therapeutic processes?

A) clinical therapeutic processes
B) symbolic therapeutic processes
C) social support
D) persuasion (the placebo effect)

Question 49

What is the most striking difference between a physician's approach to a sick patient and a medical anthropologist's perspective?

A) physicians will focus on the clinical processes that explain the disease, while medical anthropologists will focus only on the patient's symptoms
B) doctors will not be concerned with the patient's feelings since as physicians they know what is happening, while the medical anthropologist will be concerned with the patient's anxiety and fear during treatment
C) doctors will focus on the clinical processes that explain the disease, while medical anthropologists will want to look at the illness from all perspectives
D) all of the above

Question 50

Explain the differences between how a medical anthropologist and a physician would approach an outbreak of flu at your university.

Question 51

Before Arthur Kleinman's research, medical anthropologists tended to assume that everyone in a small-scale society made similar decisions about treating health problems. How and why did a perspective that emphasizes individual "explanatory models" transform the field of medical anthropology?

Question 52

What were the major factors in the early 1900s that led to greater improvements in health and reduction of disease?

Question 53

Although in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association stopped considering homosexuality a mental illness, the problem now extends to transgender persons. Taking on a medical anthropology perspective, discuss the reasons why transgender persons might be classified as mentally ill.

Question 54

If you were confronting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, your first task would be to stabilize the epidemic and provide enough beds for all the Ebola patients as well as separate facilities for patients with other health problems. What approach would you suggest next if you followed the agenda of medical anthropologists Paul Farmer and Jim Yong Kim, who advocated an integrated program to combat the long-term effects of the epidemic?

Question 55

How can we explain the effectiveness of ritual treatments in tribal societies when healing rituals use no substances with active chemical ingredients?

Question 56

In most countries around the world physicians typically have much lower salaries than physicians in the United States. How can we explain this fact if American physicians are no more effective at treating their patients than doctors in other countries and if medical training is roughly comparable overseas to that in the United States?

Question 57

According to medical anthropologists, how might a prayer circle in one town help a sick patient in a neighboring town? Do medical anthropologists have to become religious as a result, or are there other ways of explaining traditional healing practices?

Question 58

From what you know of American cultural values about health and disease, why does it make sense that alcoholism is largely defined as a medical problem today, even though in past decades drunkenness was seen as a moral failing?

Question 59

In recent years, new drugs have been developed to help men get erections and restore the flagging libidos of post-menopausal women. Does the medicalization of the problems -a lack of libido or the inability to get a good erection-result from a perception of a real problem or is the problem itself a social creation? How would a medical anthropologist approach this question?