cultural anthropology

Cultural Anthropology

Abstract

Today , societies in transition are frequently faced with new conditions and /or new pathogens that require an adaptation in for the affected population to develop or survive . The adaptive responses that such populations make in the process of transition are neglected in the current research . Several researches have appeared over the past three decades (for example , Knowler , Pettitt , Savage , and Bennett 1981 , West 1978 , Niswander 1968 , Neel 1982 ) that studied selected aspects of the health and disease of societies in transition . This argues that many human populations

, such as Native Americans , are undergoing rapid transition today . This statement leads to the question of the nature of transitions in these populations . This researches aspects of disease in Native Americans together with discussion of various health concerns and issues

Introduction

The growing body of research suggests that all of the societies studied by anthropologists have had continuing outside contact for a long period of time . Such periods are called transitional periods . Transitions do present particular state that challenges any population 's ability to respond to disease . Thus , Young (1994 ) believes , transitional periods are significant from the point of improving general understanding of disease in Native Americans (p . 99 . This is concerned with Native Americans undergoing transitions with regard to their disease environment , conditions that significantly change their risk factors through transformations in the population , the pathogen , or the environmental context

Definition

The concept of a population in transition is vague and inexact . What forms a transition ? How does one identify beginning and end points of transition ? Are not populations always in transition ? Genetic epidemiologists might have a very different notion of disease than , for example , social anthropologists studying witchcraft . Certain generalizations and broad definitions are still possible

In anthropology one simple way to consider the spectrum of disease in population in transition is to view those diseases that are completely genetic on one side and those that are completely environmental on the other . A careful consideration of those diseases shows that the definitions are less distinct . For instance , most cancers are considered as being environmentally caused , but the development of cancerous cells from normal ones is also clearly a genetic process (Young 1994 ,

.21 Infectious disease is definitely of environmental origin , but the immune system of populations shows genetic variability

In anthropology there are two defined models used to understand human disease processes . Anthropologists have usually used an ethnomedical model to analyze the cultural response to disease (Romanucci-Ross Moerman , and Tancredi 1997 . In the ethnomedical model a chief point is a society 's meaning of disease . The ecological model , the other anthropological approach for the research of disease , mainly includes the analysis of the biological response to disease

Prevalence of Diabetes in Native Americans

Among the diseases that are associated with Westernization noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM ) became the most severe (Young 112 . Its beginning is unnoticeable and without symptoms , so that the disease can progress not having been identified for years . In Native...