Recognizing the significance of cultural aspects in the practice of medicine, this book places a strong emphasis on the social structure, customs, and history of the indigenous population and its ramifications on health care providers. The book also considers the econo-cultural influences on the way medicine is practiced. By including chapters that focus on health care's sudden advent as commodity and the microeconomic approach to public funding for health care facilities, the Nichters explore a world in which money and patients' expectations play an ever increasing role in the way health care is provided.
In this recently revised and updated edition of "Anthropology and International Health," prominent anthropologists Mark and Mimi Nichter examine some of the most significant health problems facing Southern Asia today and provide a critical assessment of the ways these problems are approached by those directly engaged in primary health care. This series of informative essays demonstrates th

Section One Women's Reproductive Health 1. Cultural Notions of Fertility in South Asia and Their Impact on Sri Lankan Family Planning Practices 2. The Ethnophysiology and Folk Dietetics of Pregnancy: A Case Study from South India 3. Modern Methods of Fertility Regulation: When and for Whom Are They Appropriate? Section Two Child Survival 4. Health Social Science Research on the Study of Diarrheal Disease: A Focus on Dysentery 5. Social Science Lessons from Diarrhea Research and Their Application to ARI 6. Acute Respiratory Illness: Popular Health Culture and Mother's Knowledge in the Philippines Section Three Pharmaceutical Practice 7. Popular Perceptions of Medicine: A South Indian Case Study 8. Paying for What Ails You: Sociocultural Issues Influencing the Ways and Means of Therapy Payment in South India 9. Pharmaceuticals, the Commodification of Health, and the Health Care-Medicine Use Transition Section Four Health Service Research and Health Communication 10. Vaccinations in the Third World: A Consideration of Community Demand 11. The Primary Health Care Center as a Social System: Primary Health Care, Social Status, and the Issue of Team- Work in South Asia 12. Drink Boiled Cooled Water: A Cultural Analysis of a Health Education Message 13. Education by Appropriate Analogy

Mark and Mimi Nichter, both University of Arizona, Tucson.