Deck 16: Health and Illness

Question 1

In the United States, good health is tied to the cultural value of:

A) community bonds.
B) religiosity.
C) aggressiveness.
D) personal responsibility.
E) honesty.

Answer 1

personal responsibility.

Question 2

Epidemiology is defined as:

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.
E) the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.

Answer 2

the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.

Question 3

Significant changes in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas include:

A) an increase in bartering because the cash economy has been undermined.
B) less stress once militarization in neighboring Kashmir decreased.
C) urbanization that has fragmented community life.
D) more women than men training as healers.
E) government rejection of the Tibetan Buddhist healing practices.

Answer 3

urbanization that has fragmented community life.

Question 4

Ethnopharmacology is defined as:

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.
E) the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.

Question 5

________ is the anthropological perspective most likely to be used to study and improve health conditions in Texas colonias.

A) Ethnopharmacology
B) Ethnomedicine
C) Microbiome
D) Medical anthropology
E) Cultural pluralism

Question 6

________ is the individual patient's experience of sickness.

A) Disease
B) Microbiome
C) Bacteria
D) Illness
E) Biomedical

Question 7

Stereotypically, images of health care in ________ include doctors in white coats, hospitals, and advanced technology.

A) Tibet
B) the United States
C) China
D) Yucatán
E) northern India

Question 8

Conventional wisdom attributes good health and longevity to all of the following, EXCEPT:

A) eating the right foods.
B) getting exercise.
C) smoking in moderation.
D) not using illegal drugs.
E) clean living.

Question 9

Ethnomedicine is defined as:

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.
E) the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.

Question 10

Biomedicine is defined as:

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.
E) the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.

Question 11

Medical pluralism is defined as:

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.
E) the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.

Question 12

The specialization of medical anthropology has grown significantly since the:

A) 1920s.
B) 1940s.
C) 1960s.
D) 1980s.
E) turn of the twenty-first century.

Question 13

According to the text, Texas colonias are of interest to medical anthropologists because:

A) the majority of the residents return to their native Mexico for medical treatment.
B) their rates for many diseases are considerably above state and national averages.
C) the majority of the residents came to the United States in the 1950s and are now in dire need of medical specialists in gerontology.
D) they are investigating if there is a genetic reason why cancer rates are low.
E) most expectant mothers have midwives attend them rather than going to hospitals.

Question 14

Traditional healers known as amchi provide health care in:

A) the eastern highlands of New Guinea.
B) the Ladakh region of northern India.
C) southern China and California.
D) rural Haiti.
E) Yucatán, Mexico.

Question 15

According to the text, Mayan women of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula typically gave birth:

A) after going to the hospital.
B) attended by physicians, but in their own homes.
C) while sitting or reclining in hammocks.
D) after drinking cups of pulque, an herbal tranquilizer.
E) through the assistance of epidural pain blockers.

Question 16

________ is a discrete, natural entity that can be clinically identified and treated by a health professional.

A) Illness
B) Disease
C) Culture
D) Psychosomatic illness
E) Susto

Question 17

Health includes not merely the absence of infirmity, but also complete physical, mental, and ________ well-being.

A) cultural
B) economic
C) functional
D) social
E) local

Question 18

In the view of "technocratic birth":

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.
E) medical professionals believe that nature will take its own course.

Question 19

Which of the following statements does NOT reflect the description of biomedicine in the text?

A) It has spread because it encompasses an aura of modernity and progress.
B) It draws heavily on European enlightenment values.
C) Its values of individualism and rationality are not universally held.
D) Social factors rather than the human body are the focus of treatment.
E) It is closely linked with Western economic and political expansion.

Question 20

The author attributes the increased popularity of Tibetan medicine in recent decades to:

A) international migration.
B) the end of colonization there.
C) a rejection of ethnomedicine.
D) a desire for pain-free epidural injections.
E) Tibetan medicine is not gaining popularity.

Question 21

As discussed in the text, biomedical physicians diagnosed Lia Lee of Merced, California, as suffering from:

A) typhoid.
B) German measles.
C) appendicitis.
D) epilepsy.
E) soul loss.

Question 22

Which of the following conditions is believed to be transmitted through funerary practices?

A) epilepsy
B) kuru
C) qaug dab peg
D) tuberculosis
E) foot and mouth disease

Question 23

Residents of rural Haiti experienced extremely high rates of:

A) cervical cancer.
B) tuberculosis.
C) obesity.
D) hypertension.
E) measles.

Question 24

Surgical procedures are a component of ________ that are not a component of all health-care traditions.

A) the biomedical model
B) cultural competency
C) a microbiome
D) ethnomedicine
E) illness narratives

Question 25

According to the text, one consequence of the health transition is that:

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 is a decline in health disparities across the globe.
E) there is less political intervention in the way health care is managed globally.

Question 26

A key to the biomedical model is:

A) using scientific means to diagnose a disease.
B) asking patients to name their condition.
C) seeking underlying cultural bases for illness.
D) recognizing that all bacteria are potentially harmful to the human body.
E) seeking natural cures for illness.

Question 27

Chinese medicine conceptualizes qi as:

A) the balance of hot and cold forces.
B) an energy found in all living things.
C) an ecosystem of the all the bacteria found in the body.
D) a form of therapeutic massage.
E) the burning of herbs near the skin.

Question 28

Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock reported a case where, after hearing the story of a woman under tremendous personal stress, medical students:

A) advised her to take an aspirin.
B) suggested she take a vacation.
C) diagnosed a brain tumor.
D) asked what the real causes of her pain were.
E) attempted to analyze her illness narrative.

Question 29

Kuru is a disease that:

A) is passed genetically from father to son in New Guinea.
B) is a serious health threat to black women in New York City.
C) the Fore acquire through consuming cooked flesh.
D) Spanish conquistadores brought to the New World.
E) causes dysentery and vomiting in northern India.

Question 30

According to the author, Paul Farmer argues based on his fieldwork in Cange that:

A) anthropologists should treat illness with Western medicines whenever necessary.
B) anthropologists should use their knowledge for intervention to help solve problems.
C) unless they acquire lots of money from sponsors, anthropologists have little chance of changing the lives of people they study.
D) many communities do not want anthropologists to interfere.
E) it is unlikely that ethnomedical and biomedical approaches to health care can coexist.

Question 31

The study of health care provided at Alpha House in New York City suggested that:

A) doctors take the symptoms of male patients more seriously than those of women.
B) the clinic only treats patients who have private health insurance.
C) conflicts occurred between physicians of color and white patients.
D) doctors are less intrusive when treating Medicaid patients.
E) black women were considered better able to stand pain than white women.

Question 32

In the United States, statistical data for racial disparities in health indicate that:

A) there is little difference between maternal mortality of black and white mothers.
B) black babies are more than twice as likely to die in infancy as white babies.
C) high-quality health care in New York City means lower rates of maternal mortality than
National averages.
D) there are higher rates of infant mortality among women of any race who live in the Deep South.
E) white women die more frequently from complications of pregnancy than women of color.

Question 33

Anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer's first step in improving health conditions in the rural community of Cange involved:

A) assessing health-care needs by x-raying and collecting blood samples from residents.
B) having the government provide physicians and nurses to help him conduct a health survey.
C) providing clean drinking water to the community.
D) asking the Catholic Church to send missionaries so that locals would give up beliefs in voodoo.
E) burning the village to kill all bacteria, and relocating residents to a hilltop.

Question 34

Medical migration as discussed in the text does not include:

A) the movement of diseases across national borders.
B) a global trade and movement in body parts.
C) a reduction in the number of poor patients seeking treatment abroad.
D) an increase in medical tourists purchasing lower-priced medicines abroad.
E) fewer images used to market youth and beauty, as these vary culturally.

Question 35

The kuru epidemic essentially came to an end:

A) when Christian missionaries helped to eliminate cannibalism.
B) when the government began requiring neonatal care.
C) when the population developed a natural immunity.
D) with the introduction of penicillin and antibiotics.
E) once cremation became the norm in the region.

Question 36

The case of Lia Lee is significant for medical anthropologists because:

A) her parents were able to make a seamless transition from Eastern to Western medical systems.
B) Western medicine provided a cure for an illness that herbs and soothing baths did not.
C) of the tensions of medical pluralism, as the family's beliefs did not mesh with the physicians'.
D) it was a case of successful ethnomedicine, as physicians accepted herbalists' advice.
E) the child died when she was given an overdose of antibiotics in the hospital.

Question 37

The core foci of critical medical anthropology do not include:

A) identifying how economic and political systems perpetuate unequal access to health care.
B) understanding ways that systems of power generate disparities in health care.
C) exploring how race, class, and gender affect access to and provision of health care.
D) focusing on treating individual patients rather than identifying needs of entire groups.
E) developing strategies to overcome mechanisms that maintain health inequities.

Question 38

According to the text, the People's Republic of China moved to institutionalize traditional Chinese medicine by all of the following, EXCEPT:

A) sending "barefoot doctors" to rural villages in the mid-twentieth century to provide low-cost care.
B) formalizing teaching and requiring that practitioners be certified.
C) subsidizing research in low-tech approaches to preventative care.
D) developing ties by sending medical personal to developing nations in Africa.
E) creating videos to show Westerners the benefits of Chinese medical treatments.

Question 39

Anthropologists who studied the rituals associated with surgery discovered that:

A) many surgeons shave their hands to ensure a sterile environment.
B) physicians and nurses typically pray together before entering the operating room.
C) scrubbing the hands often reduces anxiety among medical personnel.
D) female surgeons are more likely than men to eat the same meal before each operation.
E) there is little in the process that appears ritualistic.

Question 40

The ecosystem, composed of trillions of organisms in the human body, is a:

A) cultural pharmacology.
B) disease.
C) bacteria.
D) human microbiome.
E) nature cure.

Question 41

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 42

As discussed in the text, anthropologist Paul Farmer:

A) is a founding member of Doctors Without Borders and works closely with German physicians in Afghanistan.
B) is cofounder of Partners in Health, which works with local communities in Haiti to improve the health conditions of poor Haitians.
C) has studied cultural beliefs and practices surrounding childbirth in a number of countries.
D) linked the degenerative disease kuru with cannibalistic death ritual in South Fore.
E) studies the conflict resulting from medical pluralism between Hmong immigrants and American health-care professionals.

Question 43

What population did Shirley Lindenbaum and Robert Glasse study?

A) Hmong immigrants in the United States
B) the Fore of New Guinea
C) Maya in Yucatán, Mexico
D) mothers in New York City
E) impoverished Haitians

Question 44

Which of the following is NOT a function of the human microbiome?

A) aid in digestion
B) synthesize vitamins
C) combat pathogens
D) attract mates
E) moisturize the skin

Question 45

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 46

Describe the factors that contribute to the state of health for the residents of colonias in Texas. What is the infrastructure like in these communities? Analyze this situation from the perspective of critical medical anthropology by identifying three diseases that may be attributed to specific conditions. For example, what factors in the infrastructure might cause the spread of dengue? Do residents have access to health care? If not, what are the deterring factors?

Question 47

Anthropologist ________ is associated with the concept of illness narrative.

A) Paul Farmer
B) Nancy Scheper-Hughes
C) Robbie Davis Floyd
D) Arthur Kleinman
E) Margaret Mead

Question 48

Since 1996, the rate of births by cesarean section (C-section) in the United States has:

A) decreased dramatically as more mothers turn to alternative medical options.
B) increased dramatically, probably more as a result of cultural conceptions of childbirth and institutional pressure than medical necessity.
C) increased dramatically as the medical necessity for C-sections is proven by studies of other cultures.
D) fluctuated widely as trends in childbirth come in and out of cultural acceptance.
E) neither increased nor decreased by a significant amount.

Question 49

The author writes that all medical systems constitute a form of ________ because they are based in a particular local cultural reality.

A) ethnomedicine
B) ethnopharamacology
C) biomedicine
D) medical pluralism
E) illness narrative

Question 50

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 relative to ethnocentric views about non-Western populations.

Question 51

What population did Bridget Jordan and Robbie Davis-Floyd study?

A) Hmong immigrants in the United States
B) the Fore of New Guinea
C) expectant mothers in Mexico, Sweden, Holland, and the United States
D) mothers in New York City
E) impoverished Haitians

Question 52

Where did Paul Farmer conduct his fieldwork?

A) Merced, California
B) Papua, New Guinea
C) Yucatán, Mexico
D) New York City
E) Haiti

Question 53

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) Patients submit to the authority of the doctor, accepting a regimented prescription to achieve and maintain heath.
D) Chinese medicine rejected Western medicine in the early twentieth century as "inauthentic" and "un-Chinese."
E) Chinese medical practices vary widely within China, from patient to patient, and also over time.

Question 54

Illness narratives:

A) are based on a physician's assessment of an illness.
B) are the personal stories that people tell to explain their illness.
C) are ethnographic studies of disease and illness.
D) have been shown to be of limited value in treating disease.
E) are effective only in developing regions with limited access to biomedical treatment.

Question 55

The first step healers should use when collecting illness narratives is to:

A) x-ray a patient.
B) form their assessment of the illness and develop a treatment plan.
C) ask the patient to identify his or her perspective of the problem.
D) consult a cultural anthropologist.
E) check to ensure that the patient has health insurance.

Question 56

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? Distinguish between three different forms of treatment within TCM. How and when did Chinese medical practices become more widespread in North America and Europe, and which are most common in California?

Question 57

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.

Question 58

According to the text, medical anthropologists see health as a product of:

A) the environment, with absence of poverty and violence critical factors for good health.
B) the environment, with moderate climate and lots of sun critical factors for good health.
C) behavior, that is, the natural result of individuals' choices.
D) genetics, which means it cannot be affected by environment or behavior.
E) genetics and behavior, with no influence from the environment.

Question 59

What population did Anne Fadiman write about?

A) Hmong immigrants in the United States
B) the Fore of New Guinea
C) Maya in Yucatán, Mexico
D) mothers in New York City
E) impoverished Haitians

Question 60

Which population did Khiara Bridges study?

A) Hmong immigrants in the United States
B) the Fore of New Guinea
C) Maya in Yucatan, Mexico
D) mothers in New York City
E) impoverished Haitians

Question 61

What is kuru, and why was it important that anthropologists understand how it was transmitted? Which anthropologists investigated this condition in New Guinea, and how did their specific findings about the connection between kinship and funerary customs underscore the idea that illness is a facet of culture that must be understood holistically? Make sure to state what the conditions are that cause kuru, and discuss why the disease is not as much of a threat today.

Question 62

Analyze the anecdote of the centenarian twins from the beginning of the chapter. Based on what you've learned about health and illness in this chapter, do you agree that laughter, close family ties, religion, and a simple lifestyle can account for their longevity? If so, how? If not, what other factors could explain their long lives?

Question 63

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 did he find was the best way to treat tuberculosis?

Question 64

What was the focus of Khiara Bridges' 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? What, if anything, did she attribute any disparities to? 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 65

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 to physicians' understanding of her condition. What were the experiences of this child and her family as a result of cross-cultural misunderstandings?