Deck 14: The Body: Biocultural Perspectives on Health and Illness

Question 1

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries American doctors often had second jobs as

A) nutritionists.
B) politicians.
C) morticians.
D) barbers.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

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

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

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Medical knowledge is

A) stable.
B) narrow.
C) constantly changing.
D) not scientifically proven.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The purely physiological condition of suffering is

A) disease.
B) illness.
C) the sick role.
D) medicalization.

Question 5

The experience of physical suffering is

A) disease.
B) illness.
C) the sick role.
D) medicalization.

Question 6

The process of viewing or treating as a medical concern conditions that were not previously understood as medical problems is called

A) medical anthropology.
B) medical pluralism.
C) medicalization.
D) disease etiology.

Question 7

Paul Farmer did much of his ethnographic and applied work in which country?

A) United States
B) Mexico
C) Africa
D) Haiti

Question 8

Paul Farmer's work was originally focused on what disease?

A) Malaria
B) Diabetes
C) AIDS
D) Cancer

Question 9

The clinical therapeutic process involves

A) a doctor observing a patient's symptoms and prescribing a treatment.
B) healing rituals.
C) a patient's social networks, who typically surround the patient.
D) a patient being given a nonmedicine as if it were a medicine.

Question 10

The symbolic therapeutic process involves

A) a doctor observing a patient's symptoms and prescribing a treatment.
B) healing rituals.
C) a patient's social networks, who typically surround the patient.
D) a patient being given a nonmedicine as if it were a medicine.

Question 11

Ayurvedic medicine is a good example of

A) the subjectivity of illness.
B) medicalization.
C) folk medicine.
D) medical pluralism.

Question 12

Medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes uncovered a large criminal network engaged in the black market sale of

A) illegal drugs.
B) children.
C) bacteria.
D) body parts.

Question 13

Biocultural refers to the complex intersections of biological, psychological, and cultural processes.

Question 14

Stigmatized groups in society, whether responsible or not, are often blamed for health problems in many cultures.

Question 15

Health and illness are objective states.

Question 16

The current head of the World Bank is a medical anthropologist.

Question 17

When anthropologist Robert Welsch got sick in Papua New Guinea, most of the villagers attributed his symptoms to

A) the flu.
B) malaria.
C) sorcery.
D) homesickness.

Question 18

For the Ningerum patient to get help with his or her care and treatment, the main thing to do is

A) pay lots of money.
B) describe in detail how sick he or she is.
C) display visible signs of his or her illness.
D) hide away at home.

Question 19

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) Albinism
D) HIV

Question 20

Symbolic healing rituals involving oils, herbs, and drumming are considered

A) to be in the folk medicine domain.
B) as not working.
C) to be increasingly medicalized.
D) to prove the point of the placebo effect.

Question 21

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 22

Arthur Kleinman, a medical anthropologist who conducted research in Taiwan, argued that the key to understanding differences in perspective between doctors and patients is that healers and patients often have different

A) access to medical technology.
B) access to education and medical training.
C) class backgrounds.
D) ways of explaining what is happening to the sick persons.

Question 23

During the Civil War surgeons were little more than butchers who amputated with large, dirty saws, using no antibiotics, few painkillers, and no antiseptics.

Question 24

Doctors throughout the world enjoy a high degree of prestige.

Question 25

Diabetics often have better control of their blood sugar when they are with supportive family members but poorer control when feeling isolated.

Question 26

The first cases of HIV in Africa appeared along highways because of the interactions between prostitutes and truckers traveling long distances.

Question 27

In which of the following ways would the sick role of people in an African country be expected to differ from the American sick role?

A) Although it would need to be confirmed with empirical evidence, we could presume that people must want to get better and should assist in their therapy.
B) Although all societies will have some form of sick role, it is impossible to know what form the local sick role takes without interviewing and observing local people when they are sick.
C) From statistical analyses, we would expect that people will be afraid of any contagious disease.
D) Because Africans are less educated than Americans, we would expect that most people will believe in magic and ritual healing.

Question 28

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) There is often little difference in perspective among these experts.

Question 29

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

Question 30

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

Question 31

Explain what the power of the placebo effect as demonstrated in the French naproxen study might tell us about the effectiveness of other drugs besides painkillers.

Question 32

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 Yon Kim, who advocated an integrated program to combat the long-term effects of the epidemic?

Question 33

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 34

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 35

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 36

What factors were important in changing the way Americans breastfeed or bottle-feed their babies?