Medical Anthropology workshop

RESCAP-MED Capacity Development Workshop

Introduction to Medical Anthropology

Cesme, Izmir, Turkey  9-12 December 2013

Workshop Coordinator:  Dr. Shahaduz Zaman, Newcastle University, UK

Workshop Content:

Medical Anthropology is among the largest and most vibrant subfields within the discipline of Anthropology, reflecting the centrality of health in people’s lives and the scope health and medicine provide for social scientific perspectives. There is increasing recognition that socio-economic and cultural factors have crucial influences on health and health care. What are the socio-economic and cultural factors which complicate treatment for chronic conditions like diabetes?  What factors contribute to the acceptance of community health financing or a vaccination program? What social and cultural factors should be taken into account to realize all ambitious plans to improve reproductive health care? What cultural assumptions of health care workers hinder or facilitate communication with members of the community?  What are the needs of the growing group of older people or psychiatric patients?  These are only some of the questions health professionals and health planners are confronted with. Anthropological research can be a tremendous support to health programs, by giving insights from the perspectives of recipients and providers of health programs and health care and also by providing managers and implementers of these programs with mechanisms and strategies that could lead to a reorientation of health care programs and policies towards the actual needs of the target group.  NCDs in particular pose enormous challenges for health care, because of the need for long-term management of patients, and the importance of health professionals working with families.  In addition, such research helps health workers to reflect on their own role in public health and critically assess their contribution in the field of health and health care. The need for more insight in the social and cultural context of health and health care has been expressed by social scientists involved in multi-disciplinary health research projects, and public health staff at different levels of organization. Similarly, professionals directly involved in providing health education and primary health care and in implementing the health programs are confronted with difficulties related to the socio-cultural context in which they work. This workshop aims to address these issues.

Workshop Objectives

Participants who successfully complete this workshop will be able to:

• Understand the basic concepts of anthropology in general and medical anthropology in particular
• Understand the anthropological approach to public health;
• Comprehend the social and cultural realities of health and health care;
• Understand how medical anthropologists can work as part of an integrated multi-disciplinary research team;
• Understand the rationale for ethnographic and qualitative research methods used in medical anthropology; and be able to apply some basic skills of ethnography in relevant contexts.

Session Plan of the Workshop

Facilitators:

Shahaduz Zaman: Newcastle University, UK- Workshop Coordinator

Sjaak van der Geest- University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

İnci User- Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Belkıs Kümbetoğlu, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Bahar Taymaz, Duku Eylus University, Izmir, Turkey