Deck 14: Health, Illness, and the Body

Question 1

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

Answer 1

as holistic and embracing Tibetan ecological worldviews

Question 2

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.

Answer 2

It is the least common point of access for most people worldwide.

Question 3

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 3

They are not part of the definition.

Question 4

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 5

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) Women are viewed as sick, helpless patients.

Question 6

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 7

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 8

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 9

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 10

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 11

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 12

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 13

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 14

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.

Question 15

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 16

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

A) ethnopharmacology
B) ethnomedicine
C) illness narratives
D) medical anthropology

Question 17

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 18

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 19

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 20

Medical anthropology takes a holistic approach to health. In addition to examining meaning and power, what else does this approach include?

A) promoting ethnopharmacology
B) promoting biomedicine
C) epidemiology
D) Genetics

Question 21

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 of rationality, individualism, and progress
D) the willingness of the doctor to practice alternative medicine

Question 22

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 risen significantly in the past century.
D) There has been a decline in health inequality across the globe.

Question 23

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 parent's illness narrative.
C) The clash between the family's beliefs and that 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 24

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 25

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 26

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 27

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 28

Surgical procedures are integral to which of the following?

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

Question 29

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 30

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 was 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 31

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 32

During the European conquest of North America, entire populations suffered due to the diseases brought to the continents 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 compare?

A) It no longer includes the movement of diseases across national borders.
B) It now 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 33

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 34

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 originate?

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 35

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 36

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

A) in spreading Western medicine
B) in non-Western cultures
C) in the use of herbal medicines
D) in providing health care across cultural divides

Question 37

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 38

Paul Farmer found poor 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 provided water to cities and large landholders 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 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

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 42

In Chinatown in New York, Kaitlyn can treat her headache at a tuina facility, Chinese herbalist, university hospital-affiliated medical clinic, or a botánica that sells religious icons and herb from a variety of Latin American and Caribbean traditions. These options are examples of:

A) medical pluralism.
B) biomedicine.
C) traditional Chinese medicine.
D) medical anthropology.

Question 43

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 44

A Shipibo shaman uses Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink brewed from roots and leaves found in the rainforest, to treat spiritual and psychological maladies. Researchers interested in studying its effectiveness are studying:

A) ethnomedicine.
B) the human microbiome.
C) ethnopharmacology.
D) epidemiology.

Question 45

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 46

What approach would a medical anthropologist take to understand why some middle-class American parents with health insurance do not vaccinate their children for measles, mumps, and rubella?

A) critical medical anthropology
B) epidemiology
C) the interpretivist approach
D) medical ecology

Question 47

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 48

Research revealed that residents of neighborhood X, a low-income area with few commercial businesses apart from convenience stores, had higher incidence of cardio-vascular disease than residents of the affluent neighborhood Y, which had a wide selection of grocery stores, farmer's markets, drugstore chains, exercise facilities, as well as private gyms. What non-biological factor is likely to be associated with risk of cardiovascular disease in these communities?

A) medical pluralism
B) alternative medical practices
C) social inequality
D) genetics

Question 49

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 50

Which analytical perspective would a medical anthropologist use to explore how economic and political systems, race, class, gender, and sexuality create and perpetuate unequal access to health care?

A) critical medical anthropology
B) epidemiology
C) the interpretivist approach
D) medical ecology

Question 51

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 52

Emily spent her summer vacation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she got plastic surgery for a fraction of what it would cost in the United States. This is an example of:

A) medical pluralism.
B) medical migration.
C) medical anthropology.
D) medical ecology.

Question 53

Travelling to Tijuana to buy high blood pressure medicine, making a pilgrimage to visit a saint's shrine for healing, and going to the rainforest to participate in a ritual guided by a Shaman are all examples of:

A) medical migration.
B) biomedicine.
C) the movement of germs and disease.
D) the globalization of biomedicine.

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

Linda's health insurance does not cover contraception and only covers one annual preventative gynecological visit. That same insurance covers her husband's Viagra prescription and numerous checkups. This is an example of:

A) how health care practices reflect and reinforce patterns of inequality.
B) epidemiology.
C) how healthcare has a system of meaning.
D) the interaction of disease and pathogens with the environment.

Question 56

Geoffrey hoarsely calls his boss and describes his phlegm and high fever. Geoffrey stays home and briefly considers going to the movies, but decides not to in case someone from work sees him. The role Geoffrey has taken on is an example of:

A) disease.
B) illness.
C) sickness.
D) medical anthropology.

Question 57

What is meant by the "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 58

In the Andes mountains, a medical specialist called a curandero rubs a sick person with a guinea pig to diagnose and remove the cause of his illness. This is an example of:

A) ethnomedicine.
B) biomedicine.
C) ethnopharmacology.
D) Tuina.

Question 59

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 60

Itzel explains to the school nurse that her son, Tlahco, who has been listless and withdrawn in class has also been restless all night long because he is suffering from susto, a sudden fright that he got from a traumatic experience, that caused his soul to depart. What best escribes Itzel's explanation?

A) epidemiology
B) illness narrative
C) health census
D) cultural barriers

Question 61

Compare and contrast the typical attitudes toward and practices of childbirth in the United States with those that Brigitte Jordan and Robbie Davis-Floyd observed in Sweden, Holland, and Yucatán, Mexico.

Question 62

How does Anne Fadiman's research among Hmong refugees in California illustrate the conflicts that can arise between Western and non-Western approaches to health care and treatment? Describe Lia Lee's health condition, including how her parents' understanding of it differed from physicians' understanding of her condition. What experiences did this family have as a result of cross-cultural misunderstandings?

Question 63

An amchi and a cardiovascular surgeon:

A) are both examples of ethno-healers.
B) exemplify the difference between ethnomedical and biomedical approaches.
C) are antithetical approaches because amchis draws on Buddhist moral value and Tibetan ecological worldviews.
D) both employ Western biomedicine at this point in time.

Question 64

Anthropologists believe that culture plays a role in ways that health is perceived, experienced, and treated. Using the example of the Maya of Yucatán, Mexico, identify two specific aspects of the birth process that differ from the typical birth in the United States and explain how they reflect local cultural values and community conditions.
.

Question 65

Laurent Pordié and Nomad RSI, a French NGO, helped local amchis:

A) to grow and distribute medicinal plants to distant villages and establish a school to train new practitioners.
B) promote their products in alternative market for alternative cures that is growing in Europe and North America.
C) to cooperate with the Indian government to get modern medicine to remote Himalayan villages.
D) to treat victims of military violence.

Question 66

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS across the globe has evoked varied health care responses. For example, in Thailand, where it is accepted that HIV/AIDS occurs among all segments of a population, a successful program stemmed its spread; however, in other countries, a mixture of denial that HIV/AIDS is a problem for all segments of society and deeply internalized homophobia have resulted in disastrous treatment plans and increased rates of transmission. How would you use anthropological approaches to design an effective local HIV/AIDS prevention program? In your answer describe at least 3 aspects of the larger problem that you would tackle and the approaches or methods you would take to solve them. You may draw on the cases discussed in the text.

Question 67

Paul Farmer believed the delivery of medicines and medical procedures alone was not enough to solve local health problems. Describe three ways his health initiative, Zani Lasante, used anthropological methods and perspectives to address public health-care problems in Cange, Haiti.

Question 68

Which analytical perspective would a medical anthropologist use to study how humans make sense of health and illness?

A) critical medical anthropology
B) epidemiology
C) the interpretivist approach
D) medical ecology

Question 69

British biomedicine:

A) is less concerned about high blood pressure and cholesterol than biomedicine in the United States.
B) uses fewer antibiotics than doctors do in the United States.
C) is associated with a greater use of psychotropic drugs, antibiotics, blood pressure medicine, and C-sections than United States biomedicine.
D) is exactly the same as the biomedicine practiced everywhere in the Western world.

Question 70

Today, medical anthropology uses the term "ethnomedicine" to refer to:

A) local systems of health everywhere, including biomedicine.
B) non-Western systems of health.
C) all health systems except Western bio-medicine.
D) exclusively ethnopharmacological cures.

Question 71

What are two underlying beliefs that shape the traditional Chinese Medicine approach to health care? Give two examples of treatments that it uses. What do these types of treatment attempt to achieve?

Question 72

If you are sick enough to miss class, the social agreement about sickness suggests that you should:

A) eat chicken soup.
B) pursue an enjoyable leisure activity to lower stress.
C) be at home resting and following a doctor's advice.
D) go to work.

Question 73

Describe three ways that the care provided by Tibetan Buddhist healers has changed during the past thirty years due to the processes of globalization and Westernization.

Question 74

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 differences did she observe in the treatment that patients received? What did she conclude about the disparities in healthcare outcomes in the United States?

Question 75

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

Question 76

A Dutch woman's attitude toward childbirth:

A) reinforces the values of hard work, endurance, and tolerance of difficulty.
B) sees it as a natural process.
C) views it as personal and fulfilling accomplishment.
D) is filled with anxiety and she often cries out in distress.

Question 77

Discuss how "traditional" Chinese medicine has "gone global"? How and when did Chinese medical practices become more widespread in North America, Europe, and other parts of the world?

Question 78

Disability:

A) is an embodied experience defined exclusively by impairment to a sense or limited mobility.
B) is physically, not socially defined.
C) interacts with other stratified systems of power to create additional vulnerabilities.
D) is something that most people will not experience in their lifetime.