Medical Anthropology

The field of medical anthropology emerged in the 1960s, with roots in physical anthropology and human evolution, the study of primitive medicine, cross-cultural psychiatry, and the involvement of anthropologists in international health. The Society for Medical Anthropology, organized in 1967, became a section of the American Anthropological Association in 1972, and today constitutes the largest group within that organization. In contrast,rift gold the medical sociology and health psychology sections of their parent organizations have never constituted more than a small percentage of overall membership. The involvement of medical anthropologists in public health has grown steadily over the past 40 years, with the growth of interdisciplinary fields such as social and cultural epidemiology, maternal and child health, international health, environmental health, reproductive health, and health education. Although the number of U.S. medical anthropologists working in domestic public health settings has always outnumbered those working internationally, their contributions to the latter arena have been more prominent because of its cross-cultural orientation.

In contrast, medical anthropology departmentswith an international health focus have occupied prominent positions in European schools of public health, including programs in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, France,rift gold and Germany (Saillant and Genest, 2007). In addition, a number of strong medical anthropology programs have been developed within European departments of anthropology, such as those at the University of Amsterdam and Heidelberg University, which provide graduate-level training for many developing-country students.