[afro-nets] Short course on Medical Anthropology at Heidelberg University

["Natascha Petersen" <natascha_petersen@urz.uni-heidelberg.de>]

Short course on Medical Anthropology at Heidelberg University
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April 30 ? May 11, 2007
Heidelberg, Germany

The Department Tropical Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Heidelberg would like to announce its short course on:
Medical Anthropology as a Tool for Public Health

Date: April 30 ? May 11, 2007

Why this course?
When health professionals come to work in contexts different from their own they are often faced with a set of challenging questions: Why do health policies and programs not work everywhere? How can we understand different cultural ideas about health and the body, and how do such ideas affect our health programs? And why do people prefer local healers even though they have access to modern medicine? How people explain, cure and react to illness is always shaped by their cultural background. This cultural dimension of health and illness is an important factor for medical professionals and public health workers, as well as program planners and managers.

This course provides essential knowledge about the links between health and culture, and also imparts methodological tools that will help participants to understand and use cultural categories in the context of health related work. It will explore the social and cultural determinants of health seeking behaviour, and investigate the relation between medicine and local healing systems.

Content Overview
*   Medical Anthropology and Public Health 
*   Medical systems as cultural systems
*   The body as a cultural construct
*   Explanatory models and health seeking behaviour
*   Methods in Medical Anthropology: combining qualitative and quantitative methods
*   Medical pluralism 
*   Indigenous and traditional medicine; patients and healers; health and cosmology, ritual and religious healing
*   STDs and HIV/AIDS culturally contextualised 

Objectives
At the end of the course the participants will 

1. have demonstrated a solid understanding of the impact of culturally constructed ideas on concepts of health and illness in different social settings

Specific objectives:
*   locate the impact of cosmology on ideas of health and illness
*   examine how different concepts of the body lead to a different evaluation of health care measurements
*   employ the impact of gender, hierarchy and class on health care matters
*   define the cultural matrix of ritual healing
*   recognise biomedicine as a cultural system

2. be able to use ethnographic methods in order to identify culturally constructed ideas on health, illness and the body 
Specific objectives:
*   Conduct structured and semi structured interviews and abstract different culturally informed explanatory models (EM) of health and illness.
*   Collect illness narratives
*   Combine qualitative methods (ethno-graphy) with quantitative methods. 

3. know how to apply the collected data and information to gain a better understanding of specific health care problems and apply the results in health care management issues  
Specific objectives:
*   Define the relationship between culturally informed explanatory models and health seeking behaviour and define strategies for a better health care management
*   Utilise information on illness beliefs and concepts of the body to contextualise health care problems and apply them in practice


Target Group / Prerequisites
*   Public health professionals, project planners & managers, paramedical staff, social scientists, tropeEd students, etc.
*   The course is held in English. Fluency in English (Reading, Speaking, 
    Writing) required for the course.

Learning Methods	
The course uses ethnographic case studies from the field of Medical Anthropology in order to create an understanding of culturally constructed concepts of illness and disease. Drawing on a range of sources from different countries, including Europe, the manifold connections between culture and health are explored. On the basis of these case studies the methods of Medical Anthropology are explained and their usefulness and applicability for health care issues are demonstrated. Students will be taught anthropological methods and conduct training interviews among themselves. 

Organisation 
This course is organised by the Department of Tropical Hygiene & Public Health (ATHOEG) in cooperation with the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg (SAI).

Duration/Accreditation 
2 weeks / 90 hours. tropEd students receive 3 ECTS towards their MIH degree.

Course fee
? 1.500; 
No scholarships available.
A non-refundable registration fee of ? 200 is included in the course fee. The course fee covers coursework, printed materials, coffee breaks and a pass for the Heidelberg public transportation system, but it does not include accommodation, insurance or other personal living costs during the stay. 

Registration 
Please register as soon as possible as the number of participants is limited. Registrations are possible, as long as seats still available, but please keep in mind the time you need for travel and visa arrangements.

Contact 

Natascha Petersen
Programme Manager
Short Courses in International Health 
Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health, University of Heidelberg
Im Neuenheimer Feld (INF) 324, Germany 
D-69120 Heidelberg
Fon: +49? 6221 / 56?5048 
Fax: +49? 6221 / 56?4918
E-Mail mailto:petersen@uni-hd.de 
http://www.ukl-hd.de/athoeg