Description

In this course we propose to introduce new thinking and research which brings together anthropological approaches to social and cultural variation, with public health interventions into population problems. Modern science and technology are continually providing us with new means of treating pervasive health problems like malaria, AIDS, and infertility. Populations are living longer than ever before because of new medicines and programmes to implement them around the world. But we all know that new drugs and clinical techniques are not simply ‘magic bullets’ – miracle cures which do the job all by themselves. For one thing, medicine requires infrastructure in much of Africa, Asia and Latin America there is simply not a network of clinics to make scientific improvements available to the poor over large areas or and this is no less important, to monitor the use and misuse of medicines (which can lead, as in the case of malaria to their declining efficacy).