Question

In terms of Medical Anthropology :)

1. describe two ways/cases(with refs) in which social and cultural context  influence the measurement of disease?

Answer 1

The social and cultural aspects very much influence the health or any disease of an individual.

DEFINING THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT :

Health is determined by several factors including genetic inheritance, personal behavior, access to quality health care, and the external environment such as quality of air water and housing conditions.Some types of social variables such as socioeconomic status or poverty robust evidence of their links to health .The social networks and support or job stress is an evidence of their links to health.The health impact of growing up in a poor family also happens to reside in a disadvantaged community where other families are poor rather than a middle class community.Furthermore poverty may independently affect the health of an individual at different stages of the life (utero,infant,childhood ,pregnancy or during old age)

In short, the influence of social and cultural variables on health and disease involves dimensions of both time and place.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL & CULTURAL VARIABLES ON HEALTH / DISEASE:

The Variables that affect the health include Socioeconomic status, race,gender,immigration status, poverty , social network and the work environment.I would discuss Socioeconomic status and educational attainment as the two cases that affect the health.

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS & HEALTH :

Socioeconomic differences in health are large,persistent and widespread across different societies and for a wide range of health outcomes.In social sciences SES is measured by income and occupational status.The area where the family resides whether poor or middle class. There is a lot of influence of the locality on the health or disease of an individual. Poor areas such as slums are more prone to diseases when compared to any other middle class or high class areas due to the cleanliness environment of the locality.

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT :

The quality of education may also be relevant to health but is difficult to assess accurately.Education can be linked to health outcomes including mortality,health behavior. The relationship between lower educational attainment and worse health outcomes occurs throughout the life.For example, infants born to caucasian mothers( race belonging to europe, western asia south asia and central asia) with fewer than 12 years of schooling are 2.4 times more likely to die before their first birthday than infants born to mothers with 16 or more years of education.Steep educational gradients also are observed for children's health e.g. smoking, obesity , elevated blood levels health in midlife and at older ages .The totality of the evidence suggests that education is a causal variable in improving health.The compulsion of schooling in different localities suggests that a higher levels of education are associated with better health.

Hope the answer was helpful.

Thanks..............