Question

How does Medical Anthropology influence the health and wellbeing of individuals affected by the Covid-19 pandemic? Include 1) emic and etic views, 2) lockdown/stay at home disorder in relation to mental health in comparison to institutionalization, and 3) are the deaths considered a good death?

Answer 1

Medical anthropology : It is the sub field of the anthropology which includes the study of human health and disease - how these are shaped and understood by the various social, geographical, political and historical values and aspects.

Effects of COVID - 19 Pandemic on the individual's health :

Emic view - It is the view of the subject that is from prospective of the society

Etic view - it is the view of outsider or the observer.

=> Cultural construction of disease - preexisting explanations of infectious diseases were applied to the corona virus.

As the virus was new to whole world and the nobody knew the exact cause - some has related it to flu or some misguided people with preexisting disease

Some blamed to the government while the other blamed to the environmental conditions.

The social and cultural aspects and understanding between people and awareness has some how helped in the pandemic situation to deal with it.

=>The human tendency to divide society into "us" and "others" when fear strikes becomes especially prevalent during infectious disease like corona and lead to distancing between them, and many other misunderstandings that created a lot of problems.

=>othering- of sick people in quarantine and treatment centers can also create social distress for caregivers and healthcare workers

=> Mental health of people have been effected in yhe lockdown.

Lockdown has created a kind of stress in the minds of people

People has started feeling unhappy and unhealthy due to the pandemic and lockdown because of the changes in the lifestyle which includes : change in sleep wake cycle, change in diet, increased food intake and decreased work and unemployment .

Lockdown has created an additional effect on the individual's health with virus.

The fear of getting the disease which has no proper treatment has disturbed the individual's mind set.

The person quarantined has increased the stress levels just because of the increasedrrisk of disease.

The patients suffering from corona had a fear of death and they worsened their conditions due to the fear or the mentality.

The people who have been suffering from the disease have regained their strength.

Deaths during the pandemic were not considered as good deaths because the deaths were not occurred due to aging. The deaths were occurring due the insufficiency of the equipments, unavailability of the exact medicine that treat corona infection. Etc.