A "one size fits all" approach to health care doesn't work well, especially for America's extremely diverse population. This book provides a lively and accessible discussion of how and why a more flexible and culturally sensitive system of health care can—and must be—achieved. Notable anthropologist George Foster defined the first edition as "a very readable introductory text dealing with the sociocultural aspects of health," adding: "[T]he authors do a commendable job… . I have profited from reading The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine". With engaging examples, minimal jargon, and updated scholarship, the second edition of The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine offers a comprehensive guide to the practice of culturally sensitive health care. Readers will see America's biomedically dominated health care system in a new light as the book reveals the changes wrought by increasing cultural diversity, technological innovation, and developments in care delivery. Written by a sociologist and an anthropologist with direct, hands-on experience in the health services, the volume tracks culture's influence on and relationship to health, illness, and health-care delivery via an examination of social structure, medical systems, and the need for—and challenges to—culturally sensitive care. Cultural differences are situated against social-class differences and related health inequities, as well as different needs and challenges throughout the life course. In prescribing caring that is more holistic, culturally sensitive, and cost-effective, the work promotes awareness of pressing issues for health care professionals—and the people they serve.

The works of F. G. Bailey (1924-2020) provide a seminal template for good ethnography. Central to this is Bailey's ability to conceptually connect the well-described micro-contexts of individual interactions to the macro-context of culture. Bailey's core concerns - the tension between individual and collective interests, the will to power, and the dialectics of social forces which foster both collective solidarity as well as divisiveness and discontent - are themes of universal interest; the beauty of his work lies in his analyses of how these play out in local arenas between real people. His models provide nuanced, yet explicit road maps to analysing the different leadership styles of everyday people and contemporary leaders. This volume seeks to inspire new generations of anthropologists to revisit Bailey's seminal texts, to help them navigate their way through the ethnographic thicket of their own research. -- .

Culture and Meaning in Health Services Research is a practical guide to applying interpretive qualitative methods to pressing healthcare delivery problems. A leading medical anthropologist who has spent many years working in applied healthcare settings, Sobo combines sophisticated theoretical insights and methodological rigor with authentic, real-world examples and applications. In addition to clearly explaining the nuanced practice of ethnography and guiding the reader through specific methods that can be used in focus groups or interviewing to yield useful findings, Sobo considers the social relationships and power dynamics that influence field entry, data ownership, research deliverables, and authorship decisions. Crafted to communicate the importance of culture and meaning across the many disciplines engaged in health services research, this book is ideal for courses in such fields as public health and health administration, nursing, anthropology, health psychology, and sociology.

Methods textbooks generally offer prescriptive advice on how to perform certain techniques, how to develop specific strategies, how to analyze your results. But, as all experienced ethnographers know, this fine-sounding advice rarely provides ample guidance in dealing with real people in real field settings. That is where this casebook differs. Selecting many key methods regularly used by anthropologists - participant observation, consensus analysis, simple surveys, scaling, freelisting and triads, networks, decision modeling- the editors commissioned scholars who have completed studies using these techniques to describe them in the context of real field work. Using cases from health, community politics, family relations, and child development (among others) in settings as diverse as an Arkansas college campus, a Mexican barrio, a Thai village, and a Scottish business, the student is given a clear understanding of the diversity of methods used by anthropologists and the complexities surrounding their use.

Culture and Meaning in Health Services Research is a practical guide to applying interpretive qualitative methods to pressing healthcare delivery problems. A leading medical anthropologist who has spent many years working in applied healthcare settings, Sobo combines sophisticated theoretical insights and methodological rigor with authentic, real-world examples and applications. In addition to clearly explaining the nuanced practice of ethnography and guiding the reader through specific methods that can be used in focus groups or interviewing to yield useful findings, Sobo considers the social relationships and power dynamics that influence field entry, data ownership, research deliverables, and authorship decisions. Crafted to communicate the importance of culture and meaning across the many disciplines engaged in health services research, this book is ideal for courses in such fields as public health and health administration, nursing, anthropology, health psychology, and sociology.

This lively text by leading medical anthropologist Elisa J. Sobo offers a unique, holistic approach to human diversity and rises to the challenge of truly integrating biology and culture. The inviting writing style and fascinating examples make important ideas from complexity theory and epigenetics accessible to students. In this second edition, the material has been updated to reflect changes in both the scientific and socio-cultural landscape, for example in relation to topics such as the microbiome and transgender. Readers learn to conceptualize human biology and culture concurrently-as an adaptive biocultural capacity that has helped to produce the rich range of human diversity seen today. With clearly structured topics, an extensive glossary and suggestions for further reading, this text makes a complex, interdisciplinary topic a joy to teach. Instructor resources include an extensive test bank and a study guide.

Contraception is an issue of considerable concern to a great many heterosexually active people. Yet the impact of contraceptive technologies in the world today, in particular their implications for kinship, gender relations, and other aspects of social life, receives relatively little scholarly attention.This book brings a new perspective to the study of contraception, by collecting together in one volume leading experts in the fields of contraception, family planning and reproductive health. Contributors look at the social, economic, political and cultural contexts in which contraceptive providers and recipients make decisions about whether and what forms of contraception to use. User perspectives (whether those of recipients or providers of contraceptive services) are taken seriously, as are the perspectives of policy-makers and development experts. With its in-depth, case-study approach, this challenging book will appeal to practitioners and planners in the fields of family planning and reproductive health, as well as to students and academics of applied and medical anthropology, health studies, gender and development studies, or anyone interested in the social, cultural and ethical issues raised by contraceptive technologies.

Contraception is an issue of considerable concern to a great many heterosexually active people. Yet the impact of contraceptive technologies in the world today, in particular their implications for kinship, gender relations, and other aspects of social life, receives relatively little scholarly attention.
This book brings a new perspective to the study of contraception, by collecting together in one volume leading experts in the fields of contraception, family planning and reproductive health. Contributors look at the social, economic, political and cultural contexts in which contraceptive providers and recipients make decisions about whether and what forms of contraception to use. User perspectives (whether those of recipients or providers of contraceptive services) are taken seriously, as are the perspectives of policy-makers and development experts. With its in-depth, case-study approach, this challenging book will appeal to practitioners and planners in the fields of family planning and reproductive health, as well as to students and academics of applied and medical anthropology, health studies, gender and development studies, or anyone interested in the social, cultural and ethical issues raised by contraceptive technologies.

Summarizing the vast literature on culture and caring in a lively and jargon-free fashion, this book shows how and why a more flexible and culturally-sensitive system of health care can and must be achieved. America is truly a world civilization, home to billions of immigrants from all around the globe. We came first by land, then sea, and now air as well, bringing with us a diversity of cultural traditions. What are the ramifications of this for the way we deliver health care? Notable anthropologist George Foster defined the first edition as "a very readable introductory text dealing with the sociocultural aspects of health," adding: " T]he authors do a commendable job... I have profited from reading The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine." With engaging examples, minimal jargon, and updated scholarship, the second edition of The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine offers a comprehensive guide to the practice of culturally sensitive health care. Readers will see America's biomedically dominated health care system in a new light as the book reveals the changes wrought by increasing cultural diversity, technological innovation, and developments in care delivery. Written by a sociologist and an anthropologist with direct, hands-on experience in the health services, the volume tracks culture's influence on and relationship to health, illness, and health-care delivery via an examination of social structure, medical systems, and the need for -- and challenges to -- culturally sensitive care. Cultural differences are situated against social-class differences and related health inequities, as well as different needs and challenges throughout the life course. In prescribing caring that is more holistic, culturally sensitive, and cost-effective, the work promotes awareness of pressing issues for health care professionals -- and the people they serve.