| Title: |
Anthropological perspectives on global health |
| Keywords: |
Medicalization of life
International / global
Anthropology
|
| Country: |
United Kingdom
|
| Course coordinator: |
Dr Rodney Reynolds
Dr Audrey Prost
|
| Date start: |
2020-01-15 |
| Date end: |
2020-03-25 |
| About duration and dates: |
Begins 2nd week of January and runs for 10 weeks with one week break between weeks 5 and 6 (One three hour face-to-face session—lecture and small group seminar—per week) |
| Classification: |
advanced optional
|
| Mode of delivery: |
Face to face
|
|
Course location:
London, UK |
|
| ECTS credit points: |
6 ECTS credits
|
|
SIT:
150 Student Investment Time (15 hours of lectures, 15 hours of small group seminars/tutorials, 80 hours of private reading, 40 hours other required work including, assessed written essay and in-class presentation) |
|
| Language: |
English
|
Description:
By the end of the module, students will be able to:
• describe broad differences between social, cultural and medical anthropological conceptualizations and how they apply to global health problems and issues;
• appraise the anthropological significance of different approaches to global health from a variety of local perspectives and contexts;
• examine and discuss ethnographic evidence for the purpose of analyzing global health problems;
• critically assess the impact of varying conceptions of health and illness in people’s lives from a variety of perspectives (eg. on poverty, education, quality of life);
• discuss the application of anthropological research methods to the study of global health interventions;
• assess the importance of anthropology and social science to health policy and development in a global context;
• evaluate the relevance of anthropological approaches to appraisals of traditional evidence structures in health; |
|
Assessment Procedures:
Essay (2500 words) 90%
The essay will be based on having read a selected full length ethnography (these change from year to year) and analyze its argument and evidence in relation to topics relevant to the course.
Oral presentation 10%
20 minute presentation in class with 10 minutes of questions. Done within a group setting and based on case studies that vary from one year to the next
Students must pass this assessment to pass the module. If a student should fail the assessment, s/he will have one opportunity to resubmit it within the current academic year. |
|
Content:
Session 1 - Introduction to the module
introduce and describe major schools of anthropology and medical anthropology as a sub-discipline within them
- describe different approaches to health, illness and global health from the vantage point of anthropology
- explain the principles of medical anthropology as compared with social and cultural anthropology generally
- frame an anthropological analysis of communicable disease relative to specific health problems and systems
Session 2 - Concepts of Health and Illness
- What is a belief, why do they matter, how do they vary and what is their significance for health and illness?
- using examples of chronic and acute disease/illness, CDs, NCDs, NTDs
- define, illustrate, critique illness representations and explanatory models
- appraise social construction of illness, disease and health through anthropological concepts
- define and give examples of medical pluralism and its implications for care seeking
- discuss and examine ethnography as a form of evidence in global health
Session 3 - Rituals and Care
- What is ritual, rite, ceremony, how have these been utilized for healing and curing in different medical systems in formal and informal settings globally
- In what sense can care be understood, critiqued as or via concepts and practices of ritual?
- Practices of meaning making in relation to healing
- Appraise the effectiveness of rituals
- What questions are raised for evidence and evidence structures by rituals and different perspectives and ethics of care and caring?
Session 4 - The Body and Personhood
- why is the body a topic of concern in anthropology and the social sciences and how did it become one?
- describe social and historical constructs of the body
and person and self as concepts and as practices that impact upon health and illness understandings in local and international settings across a variety of health systems
Session 5 - Technology and Self
- Describe technology from a social perspective and assess how technology impacts understanding of health, illness, healing and curing in different health systems
No Lecture. Reading Week
Session 6 – Guest lecturer (person and topic changes per year)
Session 7- Power and Health
- present anthropological accounts of poverty and social inequalities in the (re)emergence of infection
- explore case studies that link health and illness with micro and macro level economic processes and discuss the value(s) of this approach
- explore how anthropology is used to evaluate traditional sources of evidence
Session 8 - Anthropology in and of Health and Development Programs
- assess how health and illness impact teaching of biomedicine and health for individuals and populations
- assess how health and illness beliefs and practices relate to global interventions and conceptions of poverty and quality of life
- explore how anthropology is used in health policy and evaluation
- outline anthropological critiques of development as they relate to INGOs and global health projects
Session 9 - Case Study 1 and Presentation assessment: Aging (topic changes every year)
- describe anthropology in terms of its multi-disciplinary methods and how those are utilized in global health by drawing on ethnographic examples
- identify specific global health interventions and how anthropological methods function as means of research and assessment
- present traditional evidence frameworks and anthropological critiques of them
- demonstrate how ethnography and anthropology help appraise evidence structures
Session 10 - Case Study 2 and Presentation Assessment: Nutrition (topic changes every year)
- describe anthropology in terms of its multi-disciplinary methods and how those are utilized in global health by drawing on ethnographic examples
- identify specific global health interventions and how anthropological methods function as means of research and assessment
- present traditional evidence frameworks and anthropological critiques of them
- demonstrate how ethnography and anthropology help appraise evidence structures |
|
Methods:
90 minute weekly lecture
90 minute weekly small group tutorial/seminar that includes discussion and individual presentations based on pre-assigned reading material (usually 3 peer reviewed journal research articles; ethnographic book chapters or complete ethnographies)
8 hours per week of private reading
4 hours per week of individual writing/research and preparation of course material and assignments |
|
Prerequisites:
English language proficiency
IELTS Good Level in any of the English language qualifications accepted by UCL for postgraduate studies with 6.5 or equivalent in each subtest.
See: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/apply/english-language/index
Students must have completed the TropEd MIH core course. |
|
Attendance:
25 students maximum; there is no set maximum number of tropEd students. Normally there are several places for tropEd students, but this varies from year to year. For greater chance of enrolling on the module, tropEd students are encouraged to apply by the end of September for courses in the same academic year (the UCL academic year runs from mid-September to mid-September). |
|
Selection:
TropEd applicants are awarded tropEd places on a first-paid, first-admitted basis. |
|
Fees:
850 GBP (fee in Euros subject to current exchange rate) |
|
|
|
Major changes since initial accreditation:
New Co-Coordinator: Rodney Reynolds
Content has been refined to reflect less a traditional medical anthropology curriculum and more an integration of concerns and problems in global health practice and development.
These changes have been made in response to coordinators' evaluations of the need to define more distinctly the global health content of the course. |
|
Student evaluation:
This course is very well organized, run and delivered. I cannot recommend it enough to any healthcare practitioner. It has not only be academically stimulating, but has also influenced my clinical practice for the better.
This module was good although it would have benefitted from more case studies like in the 1st session. Additionally a reading list of medical anthropology case studies would have benefitted the learning.
Overall I thought the teaching from both Audrey and Rodney was fantastic. |
|
Lessons learned:
Provide more direction in tutorials rather than leaving them more unstructured, while still emphasizing that these sessions are to be more student rather than lecturer led. |
|
tropEd accreditation:
Accredited in Mexico, May 2010. Re-accredited in Brescia, January 2013, in London, February 2015 and in Berlin, October 2018.
This accreditation is valid until October 2023. |
|
| Email Address: |
igh.adminpg@ucl.ac.uk |
| Date Of Record Creation: |
2012-05-11 01:48:04 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Of Record Release: |
2012-05-11 08:00:39 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Record Checked: |
2017-09-12 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Last Modified: |
2022-03-02 23:35:23 (W3C-DTF) |
