ANT 333-000: Disease & Human Behavior (Spring 2011)

This course will survey a wide range of important human diseases at a level suitable for students with little scientific background but a keen interest in health and illness. Students who plan a career touching on disease in some way but unlikely to become doctors or nurses—for example, in health education, public health services, health care administration, hospital-based social work, medical anthropology, medical sociology, medical economics, or aid to international development—will find that it provides a basic foundation for thinking about all the things that go wrong with the human body. We will spend one class on each of about 22 disorders or syndromes. The choice of diseases for study was motivated, first, by their importance in the experience of either people in the developing world (malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, etc.), the developed world (coronary artery disease, stroke, breast cancer), or both (cervical cancer, AIDS, depression). Second, the chosen diseases reflect the goal of touching on most major body systems and, more important, are intended to illuminate all major principles and processes—genetic, physiological, nutritional, infectious, immunological, epidemiological, psychosocial, and cultural—that contribute to disease. Students completing this course should be in a position to approach many other diseases using the principles mastered in relation to those covered in the course.