Chapter 14: Health, Illness, and the Body

disease

A discrete natural entity that can be clinically identified and treated by a health professional.

biomedicine

A practice, often associated with Western medicine, that seeks to apply the principles of biology and the natural sciences to the practice of diagnosing disease and promoting healing.

critical medical anthropology

An approach to the study of health and illness that analyzes the impact of inequality and stratification within systems of power on individual and group health outcomes.

sickness

An individual's public expression of illness and disease, including social expectations about how one should behave and how others will respond.

ethnomedicine

Local systems of health and healing rooted in culturally specific norms and values.

health

The absence of disease and infirmity, as well as the presence of physical, mental, and social well-being.

human microbiome

The complete collection of microorganisms in the human body's ecosystem.

ethnopharmacology

The documentation and description of the local use of natural substances in healing remedies and practices.

illness

The individual patient's experience of being unwell.

medical migration

The movement of diseases, medical treatments, and entire health-care systems, as well as those seeking medical care, across national borders.

illness narratives

The personal stories that people tell to explain their illnesses.

health transition

The significant improvements in human health made over the course of the twentieth century that were not, however, distributed evenly across the world's population.