ANT437H5

Advanced Seminar in the Anthropology of Health

This course is the culmination of the undergraduate Anthropology of Health focus and aims to prepare students for workplace application and graduate study in a wide range of clinical and research domains. The course brings together diverse branches of biological investigation (human biology, nutrition, growth and development, chronic and communicable disease) and undertakes a critical examination of theory and methods used in the study of human health. It traces the historical development of the powerful biomedical paradigm that dominates health research today and uses a critical lens to examine the systems used to measure and classify health and disease. It explores evolutionary and biological approaches to understanding human health by examining the concepts of adaptation and plasticity, genetic and epigenetic approaches, developmental origins and life history theories, social determinants of health, and critical medical anthropology. The course explores the profoundly influential role of social inequality on the production and reproduction of health in historical and contemporary populations.