Answer:
Step-by-step explanation:
A Unified Cultural Perspective
When seeking to understand the etiology of disease in a given population, public health specialists and human ecologists often use the “multifactorial disease model” (Curnow and Smith). This is a model in which there are a number of different factors that are thought to contribute to disease in a population. Culture is one of these factors, along with many other factors, including: genetics, environment, and so on. The factorial model appears to be consistent with previous medical anthropological research with regard to clinically applied anthropological methods. By involving anthropologists at the clinical level, it is possible to reduce the impact of cultural "factors" on disease prevalence.
Many medical anthropologists see this model of disease as outdated and inaccurate because "it reduces the investigation of social and cultural aspects of disease to discrete, static, quantifiable `beliefs` held by the study population" (Parker and Harper 12). This factorial notion of disease seems to involve the reasoning that factors of disease causation such as biology and environment are beyond the reach of culture. A modern conception of culture, as accepted by most anthropologists is significantly more complex and allencompassing. In contemporary medical anthropology, it is believed that all research, even the most subjective and scientific, is rooted in the culture and experience of those who interpret and publish the results.
As a result of past discussions and debates within the field, contemporary medical anthropology is equipped to see beyond the established factorial model of disease. Similar discussions have taken place in medical anthropology as has occurred around the Cartesian paradigm of dualism. This is a dichotomy between the mind and the individual body. This worldview is characterized by a mechanistic view of the etiology of disease, very much like the factorial model. The Cartesian paradigm continues to be used in Western biomedicine and has been accepted in medical anthropology for many years. Recently, in the context of a "new" critical version of medical anthropology, this concept was analyzed under the microscope. ScheperHughes and Lock argue for the need to challenge seemingly simple dualisms. They claim it's not as simple a problem as it seems. They challenge "medical anthropologists and physicians to view human beings and the experience of disease and suffering from an integrated perspective" (ScheperHughes and Lock 10).
While it may be argued that physicians adhere to the "Cartesian heritage," anthropologists have worked for years to develop such a unified perspective. Medical anthropologists can contribute significantly to public health policy by providing this perspective to help by providing alternative models of factorial disease that are ingrained in the world of public health.
B - Holism
The "inclusion" of the whole new medical anthropology (Porter 139) is another important tool that is potentially very useful in policy development. Anthropology is involved in looking at the overall situation in a given community It involves participatory observation to capture the smallest details in individual life events It also involves studying the macro-level forces and structures acting on people that cause them to behave in that way
The importance of anthropological holism also concerns the incongruence of model ideas factorial. The factorial model sees culture as isolated from all other factors. This kind of reasoning can lead to what Helman calls "victim error." The same pattern can be observed in public health policy if culture is seen as isolated from political, social and economic factors. Heald gives an example from his research on HIV/AIDS policy in Botswana:
The little money set aside for the construction of medical infrastructure ... could be in a situation where there is no way of knowing who is infected and who is not, and above all, nothing. way to find out (30).
Maintaining input from an anthropological perspective is important to prevent this type of counterproductive policy from developing. It is important to take a holistic approach to disease to identify all relevant factors that are contributing to a particular pandemic. John Porter, an epidemiologist, said of anthropology: "The discipline focuses on what is really going on and looks at the 'roots' from which things come" (Porter). Whether it's the "roots" at the level of social interaction between individuals, cultural nuances or macrocosmic structures that impact a particular population, anthropological research methods have proven reliable in identifying them.