精东传媒app

Unquestionably a basic concern of all humankind is its own health. The maintenance of wellness and the prevention of illness is crucial for individuals as well as for society as a whole. There is a continuing public debate and interest about health, and governments are increasingly involved as health becomes a major economic and political issue. As parents of the next generation and future leaders of the community, it is important that students be well informed, and provided with knowledge which will help them to place health issues in a broad human perspective. This is particularly the case given the unprecedented environmental demographic, social and political changes occurring both in the developed and developing world, and realizing the impact that such changes must have on health status and health care.

This course provides an overview of a wide range of factors which collectively determine individual and community health status. The perspective taken is predominantly biocultural focusing on human adaptations and human development and providing a cross- cultural and comparative framework for considering the health of our species as a whole. Most of the material discussed comes from the field of Human Biology and Medical Anthropology.

On completion of this course students will be able to:

1. demonstrate an understanding of a number of perspectives on health, covering a wide range of factors, biological, cultural, and environmental which collectively affect and determine the health status of individuals, and the health characteristics of human communities;
2. demonstrate an awareness of the wide range of: (a) beliefs about health and disease; and (b) approaches to health maintenance and healing as exemplified in a number of cultures, past and present, western and non-western;
3. demonstrate familiarity with modern western medical models, their institutions and practices as found in contemporary industrial urban society in general, and Australia in particular.