Deck 16: Health, Illness, and the Body

Question 1

The study of ethnopharmacology emerged from efforts to:

A) understand the practices of large, international pharmacology companies.
B) determine the role of herbal supplements in the dietary intake of Americans.
C) document the local use of natural substances in healing remedies and practices.
D) compare systems of health and healing.

Answer 1

document the local use of natural substances in healing remedies and practices.

Question 2

The core values of good health in the United States-personal responsibility, hard work, and clean living-shape how Americans approach functional health. Where do these values fit in respect to the World Health Organization's definition of health?

A) They are a key part of the definition.
B) They do not address the problem of unequal access to health care.
C) They result in complete physical, mental, and social well-being.
D) They are not part of the definition.

Answer 2

They are not part of the definition.

Question 3

Medical anthropology takes a holistic approach to health. What else in addition to meaning and power does this approach include?

A) promoting ethnopharmacology
B) promoting biomedicine
C) epidemiology
D) local knowledge

Answer 3

epidemiology

Question 4

According to the text, Mayan women of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula typically gave birth in a hammock. What else usually happened during the birth event?

A) Doctors and nurses carefully monitored the progress.
B) Midwives monitored the progress.
C) Family life continued as it usually did.
D) Midwives ensured that family members were not present to disturb the mother.

Question 5

How do medical anthropologists distinguish between disease and illness?

A) as a pathological condition versus an imagined reality
B) as a natural entity versus personal experience
C) as a natural entity versus a condition defined by the state
D) as a natural entity versus a psychologically treatable condition

Question 6

While conventional wisdom attributes good health to good nutrition, exercise, sleep, proper sanitation, and avoiding smoking, medical anthropologists consider many other factors when looking at health. What is one critical aspect of health that is often overlooked?

A) farming methods
B) evolutionary shifts
C) inequality
D) genetic predisposition

Question 7

What is one important reason that medical anthropology has grown significantly since the 1980s?

A) The medical profession has increasingly relied upon anthropology for data.
B) Intensive fieldwork has proved effective in solving public health problems.
C) More anthropology students have also entered the field as trained medical professionals.
D) Anthropological research has become increasingly generous with how subjects can be studied.

Question 8

The World Health Organization calls for a definition of health that includes the absence of infirmity and complete physical and mental health. What else is called for consideration in their definition?

A) muscle strength
B) economic stability
C) religious affiliation
D) social well-being

Question 9

In the view of "technocratic birth," which of the following is true?

A) Women are viewed as strong and capable actors in the birth process.
B) Expectant mothers are attended by midwives and family members.
C) Fathers are expected to hold the mothers while encouraging them.
D) Mothers can receive epidural injections to manage their pain.

Question 10

Which anthropological perspective is most likely to be used to study and improve health conditions in football players?

A) medical ecology
B) ethnomedicine
C) interpretive anthropology
D) medical anthropology

Question 11

How does the anthropological understanding of sickness differ from illness or disease?

A) Sickness can be clinically identified and treated by a doctor.
B) Sickness is the individual patient's experience of being unwell.
C) Sickness refers to the individual's public expression of illness or disease.
D) Sickness does not release the sick person from social obligations like work.

Question 12

What does the study of ethnomedicine focus on?

A) the role of hospitals and doctors in the health-care system
B) the study of religious ritual in health care
C) the local use of natural substances in healing remedies and practices
D) the comparative study of local systems of health and healing

Question 13

How do anthropologists define biomedicine?

A) the intersection of multiple cultural approaches to healing
B) a practice that seeks to apply the principles of the natural sciences
C) the documentation and description of the local use of natural substances in healing remedies and practices
D) the comparative study of local systems of health and healing

Question 14

From the anthropological perspective, an individual patient's experience of sickness is considered to be what?

A) universally defined
B) defined by a doctor
C) a matter of personal interpretation
D) culturally defined

Question 15

The fact that people will inevitably die or grow old reflects which important concept?

A) Ability is only temporary.
B) Average life expectancies are on the rise.
C) The United States has poor hospice care.
D) Only some people experience disability.

Question 16

What is medical pluralism?

A) the intersection of multiple cultural approaches to healing
B) the inclusion of medical experts in the use of local healing methodologies
C) the local use of natural substances in healing remedies and practices
D) the comprehensive study of local systems of health and healing

Question 17

Football, a popular sport in the United States, has been linked to brain injuries. Why might anthropologists be interested in the study of brain injuries in football players?

A) to assist in documenting a major health scandal
B) to better understand the relationship between health and culture
C) to advance the field of sports medicine
D) to uncover hidden problems with football

Question 18

________ is the embodied experience of people with impairments as shaped by broader forms of social inequality.

A) Illness
B) Disease
C) Sickness
D) Disability

Question 19

In his book The Body Silent, anthropologist Robert Murphy documents quadriplegia that left him wheelchair-bound. From this experience, what does Murphy conclude is the "ultimate purpose for our species"?

A) child rearing
B) the struggle for autonomy
C) education
D) creating community

Question 20

Dolly, a stay-at-home mother, makes her children breakfast every morning. However, when she came down with the flu, her kids stepped in to make breakfast for her. For Dolly, staying in bed is an example of what?

A) illness
B) emotional labor
C) disease
D) sick role

Question 21

Overall human life expectancy increased from 31 years in 1900 to what in 2015?

A) 67.2 years
B) 70.5 years
C) 78.9 years
D) 83.6 years

Question 22

According to the text, the People's Republic of China moved to institutionalize traditional Chinese medicine through a number of different strategies, including the export of the practice to other countries. Why was this done?

A) to improve the balance-of-trade situation in post-Mao China
B) to develop better teaching and educational methods for Chinese students of medicine
C) to broaden the experience of the "barefoot doctors" in China
D) to develop ties of solidarity with other developing nations

Question 23

What has significantly changed in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas?

A) the cash economy has been undermined, resulting in increased bartering
B) militarization in neighboring Kashmir has decreased, resulting in less stress
C) urbanization has fragmented community life
D) Western biomedicine is now widely available

Question 24

According to the text, what is one consequence of the health transition?

A) Chronic diseases such as cancer have declined as a primary cause of death worldwide.
B) Infectious diseases have increased as the primary cause of death in the United States.
C) Overall human life expectancy has doubled in the past century.
D) There has been a decline in health inequality across the globe.

Question 25

Surgical procedures are integral to which of the following?

A) the biomedical model
B) cultural competency
C) illness narratives
D) ethnomedical practices

Question 26

Fieldwork allows the anthropologist to accurately record the life and conditions of a people. These results are almost always shared with others. Such efforts frequently increase awareness of a particular people, but as Paul Farmer notes, rarely result in what?

A) a deep understanding of local problems
B) direct or indirect intervention to help solve problems
C) an influx of financial support to those in greatest need
D) a lasting recognition by governments that their citizens may need particular forms of help

Question 27

According to the United Nations, in 2015, which country had the highest life expectancy at birth?

A) Hong Kong
B) United States
C) Mexico
D) Iceland

Question 28

Paul Farmer found rural Haitian residents experiencing very high rates of malnutrition, dysentery, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. Many of these residents were water refugees due to the construction of a hydroelectric dam that had flooded their valley. This problem underlines the difficulty of providing adequate health care in the face of ________.

A) globalization
B) socioeconomic inequality
C) a highly corrupt government
D) rural development projects

Question 29

Paul Farmer's work in Haiti using anthropological tools led him to recognize that these same tools could also do what?

A) be a limitation for doctors working in the remote rural regions of a country
B) be a useful way to convince local governments to provide better medical care
C) help doctors think about health in the broadest possible sense
D) be used to cure diseases in the United States

Question 30

Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock reported a case of a woman under tremendous personal stress. How did the medical students respond to the story?

A) They advised her to adhere to the prescription regimen.
B) The students questioned the veracity of the doctor's diagnosis.
C) They attempted to analyze her illness narrative.
D) The students asked what the real causes of her pain were.

Question 31

In Tibet, there are about 200 traditional healers known as amchi who provide health care. What is their system of health care based on?

A) elimination of body and spirit as part of individual wellness
B) complete separation of body and spirit in the individual
C) achieving balance between body and spirit in the individual
D) elevation of the spirit over the body in the individual

Question 32

One of the most significant changes that Zanmi Lasante initiated in rural Haiti was the training of local community members as health-care workers. What factor was responsible for their success in identifying local health-care problems and providing basic health services?

A) their unflagging efforts to build waste treatment and clean water facilities
B) their ability to understand the local language, social structures, and values
C) their willingness to work with impoverished peoples in terrible conditions
D) their training provided to them in the United States

Question 33

Anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer took many steps to improve health conditions in the rural community of Cange. What was one of the most important first steps?

A) conducting a health census of the community
B) finding physicians and nurses to improve health care
C) providing clean drinking water to the community
D) creating a channel for foreign aid to improve the community

Question 34

Anthropologists have recognized that Western biomedicine draws heavily on:

A) universally held values.
B) the experience of the doctor in a foreign country.
C) enlightenment values.
D) the willingness of the doctor to practice alternative medicine.

Question 35

Increased migration has increased the popularity of Tibetan medicine in recent decades. How is this form of medicine viewed today by non-Tibetans?

A) as holistic and embracing Tibetan ecological worldviews
B) as a way to cure the human microbiome
C) as a rejection of ethnomedicine
D) as a way to develop sound entrepreneurial practices in health care

Question 36

The dominant idea of health care in the United States is doctors in white coats, hospitals, and advanced technology. What have medical anthropologists found to be the case in regard to this concept in the rest of the world?

A) It is the most common point of access for people worldwide.
B) It is the least common point of access for most people worldwide.
C) It is the least frequently contested aspect of health care worldwide.
D) It is the most frequently contested aspect of health-care delivery worldwide.

Question 37

The human ecosystem, composed of trillions of organisms in the human body, is understood as what?

A) a system of discrete, biological entities
B) a useful way to collect microbes used for the treatment of other diseases
C) a potentially lethal collection of bacteria
D) a complex microbiome

Question 38

What is one important part of medical treatment that the biomedical model overlooks?

A) the scientific means to diagnose a disease
B) social experiences as a component of disease
C) pharmacology as a means of understanding diseases
D) recognizing that biology plays a crucial role in disease

Question 39

What was one of the immediate results of the Zanmi Lasante water project?

A) a noticeable drop in infant mortality
B) a noticeable increase in agricultural output
C) a noticeable improvement in the physical health of those who had to carry water up an eight-hundred-foot hillside
D) a noticeable drop in the number of individuals complaining about the water quality

Question 40

Chinese medicine conceptualizes qi as a type of energy found in all living things, something that must be in balance to maintain good health. According to this view, what are two things mentioned in the text that must remain in balance?

A) husband and wife
B) heaven and Earth
C) past and present
D) the body and Earth

Question 41

Anthropologist Arthur Kleinman's work involves collecting different illness narratives. Where can such narratives be vital in the treatment of illness and promotion of good health?

A) within Western cultures
B) in non-Western cultures
C) in the use of herbal medicines
D) across cultural divides

Question 42

During the European conquest of North America, entire populations suffered due to the diseases brought to the continent by the conquering armies. In a very real sense, this early form of "globalization" was a type of medical migration. How does medical migration today, as discussed in the text, differ from this?

A) It also includes the movement of diseases across national borders.
B) It ignores the movement of faith-based healing across national borders.
C) It provides a reduction in the number of poor patients seeking treatment abroad.
D) It also includes the movement of treatments for disease across national borders.

Question 43

From the perspective of a medical anthropologist, all medical systems are based in a particular local cultural reality and therefore constitute a form of what?

A) ethnomedicine
B) ethnopharamacology
C) biomedicine
D) medical pluralism

Question 44

As discussed in the text, what diagnosis did the biomedical physicians first give Lia Lee of Merced, California, when her parents brought her to the hospital?

A) qaug dab peg
B) soul loss
C) an infection
D) epilepsy

Question 45

What are the four factors that anthropologists examine when they study childbirth practices cross-culturally? Contrast the view and practice of childbirth in U.S. hospitals with the typical birth experience in Sweden and Holland. What do anthropologists learn about variations in the approaches to childbirth?

Question 46

What is one of the major problems highlighted in the Village Girl Youth Project (VGYP) by anthropologist Rania Sweis?

A) There is no change in the level of involvement by the parents of the girls.
B) The girls do not actually receive any additional educational opportunities.
C) Menstruation is presumed to be a similar biological experience everywhere.
D) The concept of adolescence is defined through a strictly Western perspective.

Question 47

Bridget Jordan and Robbie Davis-Floyd studied expectant mothers in Mexico, Sweden, Holland, and the United States. Among their findings was the realization that different cultures see birth in different ways. What impact does culture have on the birthing event as a whole?

A) the probability of the infant surviving birth
B) the likelihood that the infant will live to adulthood
C) the experience of the birthing process itself
D) the differences in the way women in different cultures respond to medication

Question 48

The complete collection of microorganisms in the body's ecosystem is referred to as what?

A) microsystem
B) human ecosystem
C) microbiome
D) biodome

Question 49

The chapter opens with the story of the author's interest in American football and the discovery of serious post-career injuries. How were these injuries first discovered? Discuss the role of culture in this specific instance of medicine as a system.

Question 50

When studying the health care provided at Alpha Hospital in New York City, anthropologist Khiara Bridges documented health-care professionals referring to black women as "primitive" and stating that black women were better able to withstand pain than white women. Where did these attitudes stem from?

A) an oral tradition within the medical profession featuring stories and folklore about black women's bodies
B) the formal education health-care professionals received
C) conflicts between physicians of color and white patients
D) information that was the result of Medicaid policies and directives

Question 51

Why is the case of Lia Lee significant for medical anthropologists?

A) Her parents were eventually able to bridge the gap between their own medical prognosis and that of Lia's doctors.
B) Her doctors were ultimately able to successfully construct her parents' illness narrative.
C) The clash between the family's beliefs and those of the physicians was a clear instance of medical pluralism.
D) The entire event provided a window into the application of non-Western medicine that is difficult to document in the field.

Question 52

We are taught that antibacterial soaps and cleaning products that completely eliminate germs on surfaces and food are essential to good health. Why is this approach now under scrutiny?

A) We have a greater understanding of disease in other cultures.
B) Research has unlocked all of human genetics.
C) We are better educated about human pathogens.
D) We have begun to understand human microbiomes.

Question 53

Anthropologist Shirley Lindenbaum conducted fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and uncovered the true cause of a fatal disease, kuru. What did Lindenbaum conclude was the cause of this disease?

A) poor hygiene practices that gave rise to a unique type of food poisoning
B) the reappearance of a rare genetic anomaly that was first brought to the area by Europeans
C) the funeral rituals used by the population she studied
D) the rejection of Western medicine by the local chiefs of the population

Question 54

Since 1996, what has the trend been for the rate of births by cesarean section (C-section) in the United States?

A) It has decreased dramatically as more mothers turn to alternative medical options.
B) It has increased dramatically, probably more as a result of cultural conceptions of childbirth than medical necessity.
C) It has increased dramatically, as the medical necessity for C-sections is proven by studies of other cultures.
D) It has fluctuated widely as trends in childbirth have come in and out of cultural acceptance.

Question 55

What do scientists now think the purpose of the human microbiome might be?

A) It is a breeding ground for disease.
B) It helps reduce the instance of certain genetically developed characteristics.
C) It is a personal ecosystem that helps combat disease.
D) It is an artifact from our ancient Homo sapiens ancestors that serves no real purpose.

Question 56

What is meant by a "health transition?"

A) the significant, but uneven, improvements in human health made over the course of the twentieth century
B) the shift from Western-based medicine to other forms of healing practice
C) the change seen in how Western doctors are trained in other cultural practices
D) the shift from non-Western medical practices to Western models of medical treatment

Question 57

Which of the following statements accurately describes Chinese medicine?

A) Researchers have identified a uniform set of Chinese medical practices used by practitioners within and outside China that complement biomedical treatments.
B) It was suppressed as "unscientific" after the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
C) Chinese medicine rejected Western medicine in the early twentieth century as "inauthentic" and "un-Chinese."
D) Chinese medical practices vary widely within China, from patient to patient and also over time.

Question 58

What are illness narratives?

A) stories based on a physician's assessment of an illness
B) the personal stories that people tell to explain their illness
C) ethnographic studies of disease and illness
D) narratives provided by anthropologists to physicians

Question 59

Khiara Bridges suggests that the statistical data for racial disparities in health, which indicate that black babies die at twice the rate of white babies, are due to more than just poverty and may be a result of what in particular?

A) the failure to fully certify physician assistants in poverty-stricken areas
B) the failure to challenge and educate doctors on their internalized racism
C) the failure of Medicaid to provide equal treatment for people of color
D) the failure to educate doctors about diseases that only affect people of color

Question 60

Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, studied the Hmong immigrant population in the United States. What does her work suggest is one of the biggest challenges faced by this population?

A) a lack of English language knowledge
B) a shortage of Hmong physicians available to them in U.S. hospitals
C) the absence of housing that permits extended families to live together under one roof
D) a lack of monetary resources to pay for medical care

Question 61

What is biomedicine, and how do the practitioners view and treat diseases? Discuss two criticisms that anthropologists have about the European biases in the model.

Question 62

The widespread prevalence of HIV/AIDS across the globe has evoked a varied response in health-care approaches to the disease. In some countries, such as Thailand, the recognition and acceptance that HIV/AIDS occurs among all segments of a population has led to a very successful program to stop the spread. In other countries, a mixture of denial that HIV/AIDS is a problem for all segments of the population as well as deeply internalized beliefs about homosexuality has resulted in disastrous treatment plans that have actually seen the instances of the disease increase. As a medical anthropologist, how might you approach the problem if you were attempting to understand the presence of HIV/AIDS in a country where attitudes toward homosexuality were both strongly negative and deeply internalized to the extent that people were reluctant to talk about it and about sexuality?

Question 63

What did Anne Fadiman's research among Hmong refugees in California contribute to anthropological knowledge of the conflicts that can arise between Western and non-Western approaches to health care and treatment? Summarize Lia Lee's health condition, including how her parents' understanding of qaug dab peg differed from physicians' understanding of her condition. What were the experiences of this child and her family as a result of cross-cultural misunderstandings?

Question 64

How has Paul Farmer's research shown that medical anthropologists can improve the lives of individuals who are suffering from illnesses? What specifically did he learn about the infrastructure, daily routines, and beliefs about illness that helped him treat illness and combat critical issues such as infant mortality? What was one of Farmer's conclusions about the role of the anthropologist and anthropology after his work was completed?

Question 65

This model was pushed onto less powerful groups by colonists and other governments.

Question 66

Discuss how "traditional" Chinese medicine (TCM) has "gone global." What are two underlying beliefs that shape this approach to health care despite the range of areas where TCM is practiced? What is qi, and what does this type of treatment attempt to achieve? How and when did Chinese medical practices become more widespread in North America and Europe, and which are most common in California?

Question 67

We know that illness is culturally constructed, and this can ignore what patients and their families understand as the underlying causes of illness.

Question 68

Practitioners may ignore local or culturally determined remedies that families would prefer to use.

Question 69

Anthropologists believe that culture plays an underlying role in ways that health is perceived, experienced, and treated. Using the example of the Maya of Yucatán, identify two specific aspects of the birth process and explain how these reflect local cultural values and community conditions.

Question 70

Discuss the work of Rania Sweis and her fieldwork among Egyptian girls and the Village Girl Youth Project (VGYP). Why was this program established? Is it meeting its goals? Why or why not? What are some of the advantages it offers? What are some of the problems? What did Sweis conclude about the nature of both this program and the concept of humanitarian aid in general? How does culture play a role in this kind of situation?

Question 71

Misunderstandings can occur as a result of linguistic or cultural miscommunication.

Question 72

What was the focus of Khiara Bridges's research in the New York City women's health clinic? How did the composition of the patient population compare to that of the medical staff? What noticeable differences did she observe, if any, in the treatment that patients received? To what, if anything, did she attribute any disparities? Specifically, how did members of the medical staff view their patients, and how did she interpret these differences as creating disparities across race lines?

Question 73

There is tremendous disparity in access to and quality of Western medical treatment across the globe.

Question 74

Practitioners may feel superior to their patients and provide services based on preconceived notions about a population or group.

Question 75

How have the processes of globalization and Westernization affected health care in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas? Specifically, describe the care provided by Tibetan Buddhist healers, and provide three specific examples of how this system has changed during the past thirty years in terms of how these healers are compensated, the introduction of Western medical approaches, and the global interest in this type of health care.