Applied anthropology

Applied Anthropologists… Use anthropological statistics and data to help solve real social problems. This is true for all four fields Cultural Archaeological Linguistics Biological How involved should we get?

How involved should we get? Ivory tower view: We should not get involved at all. Schizoid view: We should get involved to learn, but not deal with policy. Advocacy view: We should use our knowledge to get involved and bring change If and when we do get involved, it’s most important that we are culturally relative and sensitive in our response…

Developmental Anthropology Development or “progress” is often encouraged of indigenous populations by their nations…anthropologists can help facilitate. Consider “Ending Hunger Now” TED

Anthropology of Education Education as we know it is a new concept. How might anthropology fit into the American classroom? Global education? Or new colonialism?

Medical Anthropology Study human health and health care systems, as well as the evolutionary bio-cultural approach that explains disease and illness in human populations. What is health anyways? What does it mean to be healthy? How do people perceive illness/disease to be caused? How do they treat those illnesses/diseases? Who gets to treat them? How do cultural institutions influence health?

Biocultural evolution and health We’ve been on this planet a little over 160,000 years. Many of our most common diseases today are new, a result of cultural innovation. Consider sickle cell anemia or the flu

Evolution of Weight Retention “In 28.7% of the societies, food shortages are rare, occurring every 10-15 years, whereas in 24.3% they happen every 2 to 3 years. Shortages occur annually or even more frequently in 47% of the societies” (417). Fat retention is selected as favorable for survival in instances of food shortages, especially for women. Would it have been sexually selected? Why? “Malcom described the custom of fattening huts for the seclusion of elite Efik pubescent girls in traditional Nigeria. A girl spent up to two years in seclusion before marriage, and at the end of this rite of passage she possessed symbols of womanhood and marriage” (420). “….the desirability of plumpness is found in 81% of societies in which there is data.”

What makes this once adaptive trait, now maladaptive? In 2014, 39% of adults 18 and over were overweight, 13% were obese. Most of the world’s population lives in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight. Modernization: “A classic natural experiment compared the diet and health of Polynesian populations at different stages of acculturation: the prevalence of obesity in the most traditional island was 15.4%, for a rapidly modernizing population, it was 29.3%, and for urban Maoris it was 35.4%” (415). http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

Obesity in the U.S. Do you notice any trends? What culture factors should consider here? http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/obesity.htm

Poor Applied Strategies

Infectious Disease Infectious diseases have killed hundreds of millions of people over the last millennia. How has human culture influenced the spread of infectious diseases?

Old Epidemics Coming Back For More… Measles virus: 145,000 deaths globally in 2013 Vaccinations dropped measles deaths by 75% between 2000-2013. 92% of all newly reported measles deaths are unvaccinated individuals in the U.S. Tuberculosis bacteria: 1.5 million deaths in 2013. In 2013, 480,000 of these cases were drug resistant. Malaria parasite: 600,000 deaths in 2013, 200 million people infected. Drug resistance, climate change, and pesticides influence malarial deaths. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/ http://needtoknow.nas.edu/id/threats/global-killers/

Why vaccinate? Vaccinations help to get the body ready for fighting a virus in the future For people who cannot get a vaccine, it’s imperative that the rest of the population gain immunity through vaccines This is called herd immunity Vaccinated populations will see lower rates of death, helping to control population growth Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent essay about autism, which was removed from the scientific community.

HIV/AIDS Origins of HIV/AIDS How does it spread? How do we explain distribution? Pisani – “Sex, Drugs, & HIV” - TEDtalk How does stigma impact HIV?

Disease Etiology Personalistic – blames illness on agents like witches and ghosts. Naturalistic – blames illness on impersonal, natural causes. Emotionalistic – blames illness on emotions. Why does cause matter?

Culture Bound Illnesses How can an illness be bound to one culture? Swallowing Frogs Susto Native American Ghost Sickness American examples?

Mental Health http://blog.ted.com/some-stats-on-the-devastating-impact-of- mental-illness-worldwide-followed-by-some-reasons-for-hope/

Americanization of Mental Illness “We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad” (Watters, 2010, p. 1). We used to have more culture bound illnesses, now we have more global mental health issues. Why is this bad? “Mental illness is an illness of the mind and cannot be understood without understanding the ideas, habits, and predispositions of the mind that is its host.” Cultural influence matters

Stigma and mental illness What is it and where does it come from? How does the “mental illness as brain diseases” fit in here? Why do people tend to fare better in other, non-Western nations? Stigma Individual versus communal High expectations