Peter J. Brown is a medical anthropologist holding a joint faculty
appointment in anthropology and global health at Emory University.
He has served as editor-in-chief of the journal Medical
Anthropology and has won several national teaching and mentoring
awards. His research interests are in culture and disease ecology,
with particular focus on malaria and obesity. He is co-editor of
The Anthropology of Infectious Disease: International Health
Perspectives (Routledge, 1998), Applying Anthropology (McGraw-Hill,
2011), Applying Cultural Anthropology (McGraw-Hill, 2012), and the
two previous editions of Understanding and Applying Medical
Anthropology. He is senior academic advisor to the Emory Global
Health Institute and served on a malaria-related Scientific
Advisory Committee for the World Health Organization.
Svea Closser is associate professor of anthropology and director of
the Global Health Program at Middlebury College. Her professional
interests are focused on the interaction between global health
policy and local health systems. Closser’s recent research projects
include a seven-country study of polio eradication and health
systems, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a
study of ground-level health staff in Ethiopia, funded by the
National Science Foundation. She is the author of Chasing Polio in
Pakistan: Why the World’s Largest Public Health Initiative May Fail
(Vanderbilt University Press, 2010), which won Vanderbilt
University Press’s Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize for the
best project in the area of medicine.
"Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology is the ‘go-to’ book for teaching medical anthropology or related courses in culture and health. I have used it with great success in many classes. One of its great strengths is that multiple perspectives are covered—ethnomedicine, illness experience, biological interactions with culture and health, political ecology, and cross-cultural healing, among others. As a capstone, the book finishes with a series of chapters on application, so important in today's globalized and diverse world. I recommend it highly!" - Mark Edberg, George Washington University"For years, Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology has served as a great foundational text for my medical anthropology courses. The reader works very well in concert with one of the many health-themed ethnographies. What I especially like is that the volume examines health and medical issues through the lens of biocultural analysis, evolution, cultural interpretation, political ecology, and applied medical anthropology. Students learn to contrast these approaches, assisted by the introductory essays. Health professionals, public health students, and anthropology majors find much to challenge and intrigue them in this collection." - Laurie Price, California State University, East Bay
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