Medical Anthropology is a discipline that gives attention to those aspects of biological and socio-culture of human behavior, particularly about ways of interaction between the two throughout the history of human life, which affect health and disease in humans.
Medical anthropology helps to learn from all socio-cultural communities relating to sick and healthy as a center of culture, including:
(1) Illness associated with trust (misfortunes)
(2) In some communities misfortunes caused by supernatural forces and the supernatural, or witches
(3) Group ‘healers’ found in different forms in each community group
(4) has the role as healer healers
(5) As for the attention of a being ‘sick’ or ‘illness’ was not individually, especially the “illness and sickness” in the family or the community.
If likened to as a liability, then the main task of medical anthropologists such as: how individuals in society have the perception and react to the “ill” and how the types of health services that will be chosen, is to know about the cultural and social conditions in the neighborhood.
There are several relating to the anthropology of science and contribute to each other in contributing to the development of other sciences. For example in the fields of biology, medical anthropology describes the technique and the discovery of medical sciences and its variations, including microbiology, biochemistry, genetics, parasitology, pathology, nutrition, and epidemiology.
This makes it possible to connect between the biological changes that can be obtained using these techniques to social factors and culture in a particular community. Examples: albinism hereditary disease in an area in East Nusa Tenggara is transmitted through a recessive gene because the marriage between family members.
In general, medical anthropology continues to contribute to other health sciences as follows:
(1) Provide a way of looking at society as a whole, including the individual. Where is the proper perspective will be able to provide an appropriate contribution in improving the welfare of a society with still relies on the roots of personality that builds community.
Examples of systems approach, holistic, emic, relativism, which became the rationale of anthropology can be used to help solve community problems and develop a better situation.
(2) To provide an operationally useful model to describe the process of socio-cultural field of health.
(3) Contribution to the research methods and research results. Both in formulating an appropriate approach and also helps the analysis and interpretation of the results of a condition in the community.
There are several sciences that contribute to health anthropology, among others:
(1) Physical Anthropology / biological / physical, Example: nutrition affects the growth, shape, variety of diseases. It is also studying the evolution of disease as a result of cultural factors, migration and urbanization.
(2) Etnomedisin, initially learned about the treatment in the community are still considered to be primitive or traditional, although in the further development of these stereotypes must be avoided because traditional medicine has not always been retarded or wrong.
(3) Personality and culture, is the observation of human behavior in various parts of the world. For example: treatment of schizophrenia in a region to find the right treatment can be used to evaluate the treatment patterns of the same disease.
(4) Public Health, where several health programs in collaboration with anthropologists to explain the relationship between health beliefs and practices.