preview

Anthropologists And Non-Communicable Diseases

Decent Essays
Open Document

Anthropologists and Non-Communicable Diseases
Health care, not only can be provided by health care professionals, but also by multidisciplinary approaches. Communicable and non-communicable diseases need a multidisciplinary approach in order to create care plans that suits the appropriateness. Non-communicable diseases, such as stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic heart and respiratory disease, are major causes of death worldwide and account for almost two-thirds of the global population’s death (Beaglehole et al., 2011). In addition, in an article by Beaglehole et al. (2011), reports that non-communicable disease mortality rate is approximately two times higher in lower to middle income countries than in high income countries. It is important …show more content…

The goal of the care plan would be to provide and to implement effective prevention strategies to reduce the mortality rate. (Balbus et al., 2013).The most important step in interventions for non-communicable diseases are evidence of the effectiveness and effects of intervention (Beaglehole et al., 2011). Anthropologists can study what the needs are and the current status in specific regions to create possible care plan with various multidisciplinary professionals. Socio-cultural anthropologist can investigate on cultural norms and societal factors that affect health care. This investigation can be done by fieldwork, where anthropologists engage in participant-observation (Schultz, Lavenda, & Dods, 2012). This process involves interactions that are direct, face-to face between researchers and local research partners to gain insightful data (Schultz et al., 2012). Through fieldwork, anthropologists can encounter factual circumstances and standpoints of health care that will shape the proposal of a possible health care …show more content…

M., Barouki, R., Brinbaum, L. S., Etzel, R. A., Gluckman, P. D., Grandjean, P., . . . Tang, K. C. (2013). Early-life prevention of non-communicable diseases. The Lancet, 381 (9860), 3-4. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61609-2
Beaglehole, R., Bonita, R., Horton, R., Adams, C., Alleyne, G., Asaria, P., . . . Keeling, A. (2011). Priority actions for the non-communicable disease crisis. The Lancet, 227 (9775), 1438-1447. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60393-0
Henry, L. R. (2015). Medical anthropology and the physician assistant profession. Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, 28, (1), 53-57. doi: 10.1097/01.JAA.0000453863.62323.ef
Schultz, E.A., Lavenda, R.H., Dods, R.R. (2012). Cultural anthropology: a perspective on the human condition (2nd ed.). Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University

Get Access