Medical Anthropology Major, B.A.

Medical anthropology addresses the biological, cultural, and political-economic dimensions of health, illness, and healing historically and at present. Reflecting the multi-disciplinary character of its parent field of anthropology, medical anthropology deploys quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the body as a site of evolutionary processes and cultural symbols, and healing as interpretive processes at macro, meso, and micro levels. 

This program provides students with the fundamental knowledge and exposure needed to pursue careers and post-graduate studies in fields related to global health, public health, allied health care and health and human services, medicine, dentistry, and other emerging disciplines. 

For students seeking a career in the health professions, the program in medical anthropology complements training in the natural sciences. Courses in medical anthropology explore population variations in health outcomes due to the influence of culture. The curriculum also equips students with ways to understand the meanings people find in illness and healing and the moral stakes of medical decisions. Additionally, courses in medical anthropology give students awareness of the formal institutions and social relations that become the channels and limitations of technical knowledge about illness and healing. 

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the medical anthropology program, students should be able to: 

  • Demonstrate knowledge of the relationships between humans' health and historical, biocultural, and societal dynamics
  • Demonstrate understanding of the ways comparative cultural and historical experiences impact health-related values and practices, definitions of illness, and methods of healing
  • Demonstrate competence in reading, analyzing, and communicating social science research on health 
  • Gain experience conducting and/or applying research using medical anthropology's methods 
  • Gain an understanding of medical anthropology's relationships to the holistic, parent discipline of anthropology and its contributions to applied professional fields such as medicine and global health. 

Requirements

In addition to the program requirements, students must

  • earn a minimum final cumulative GPA of 2.000
  • complete a minimum of 45 academic credit hours earned from UNC–Chapel Hill courses
  • take at least half of their major core requirements (courses and credit hours) at UNC–Chapel Hill
  • earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.000 in the major core requirements. Some programs may require higher standards for major or specific courses.

For more information, please consult the degree requirements section of the catalog.

Core Requirements
Select two foundational courses: 6
IDEAs in Action General Education logo First-Year Seminar: Darwin's Dangerous Idea H
IDEAs in Action General Education logo First-Year Seminar: Saving the World? Humanitarianism in Action
IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introduction to Biocultural Medical Anthropology
IDEAs in Action General Education logo Comparative Healing Systems
IDEAs in Action General Education logo Living Medicine
IDEAs in Action General Education logo Global Health
Select one research methods and experience courses (see list below)3
Select six elective courses, apportioned in the following ways: 118
At least one from the biological/ecological elective list (see below)
At least one from the sociocultural elective list (see below)
ANY Anthropology (ANTH) course can count for the remaining four electives. No more than two of the six courses can be at the 100-level or below
Total Hours27
H

Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

1

These courses can be taken at any time during the student's tenure at UNC. Students may count up to two (2) ANTH courses not included in this elective list, or up to two (2) courses from outside the department that relate to the student's area of interest in medical anthropology.

Research Methods and Experiences 

ANTH 204IDEAs in Action General Education logo From Ayahuasca to Zoloft: Anthropological Approaches to Drugs and Drug Use3
ANTH 240Action Research3
ANTH 248Anthropology and Public Interest3
ANTH 318IDEAs in Action General Education logo Human Growth and Development3
ANTH 326IDEAs in Action General Education logo Practicing Medical Anthropology3
ANTH 389
ANTH 393IDEAs in Action General Education logo Internship in Anthropology 11-12
ANTH 395Research in Anthropology H1-6
ANTH 396Independent Reading or Study in Anthropology 1, H1-6
ANTH 414IDEAs in Action General Education logo Laboratory Methods: Human Osteology3
ANTH 419Anthropological Application of GIS3
ANTH 430IDEAs in Action General Education logo War, Medicine, and the Military3
ANTH 450IDEAs in Action General Education logo Ethnographic Research Methods3
ANTH 582IDEAs in Action General Education logo Fieldwork with Social Models of Well-Being3
ANTH 625IDEAs in Action General Education logo Ethnography and Life Stories3
ANTH 675Ethnographic Method3
ANTH 676Research Methods in Human Biology3
ANTH 691HIDEAs in Action General Education logo Seniors Honors Project in Anthropology3
H

Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

1

Must be taken for at least three credit hours. 

Electives in Biological and Ecological Anthropology

ANTH 143Human Evolution and Adaptation3
ANTH 148IDEAs in Action General Education logo Human Origins3
ANTH 151IDEAs in Action General Education logo Anthropological Perspectives on Food and Culture3
ANTH 217IDEAs in Action General Education logo Human Biology in Comparative Perspective3
ANTH/ENEC 237IDEAs in Action General Education logo Food, Environment, and Sustainability3
ANTH 238IDEAs in Action General Education logo Human Ecology of Africa3
ANTH 252IDEAs in Action General Education logo Archaeology of Food3
ANTH 298IDEAs in Action General Education logo Biological Anthropology Theory and Practice3
ANTH 315IDEAs in Action General Education logo Human Genetics and Evolution3
ANTH 437Evolutionary Medicine3
ANTH 446Poverty, Inequality, and Health3
ANTH 471Biocultural Perspectives on Maternal and Child Health3
ANTH 623Human Disease Ecology3

Electives in Sociocultural Medical Anthropology

ANTH 214IDEAs in Action General Education logo Medicine in the Arab World3
ANTH 272/ENGL 264IDEAs in Action General Education logo Healing in Ethnography and Literature3
ANTH 277Gender and Culture3
ANTH 278IDEAs in Action General Education logo Women in Science3
ANTH/PWAD 280IDEAs in Action General Education logo Anthropology of War and Peace3
ANTH 294IDEAs in Action General Education logo Anthropological Perspectives on Society and Culture3
ANTH 320Anthropology of Development3
ANTH 325IDEAs in Action General Education logo Emotions and Society3
ANTH 328IDEAs in Action General Education logo Anthropology of Care3
ANTH 349IDEAs in Action General Education logo Histories of Violence3
ANTH 361Community in India and South Asia3
ANTH 390Special Topics in Medical Anthropology3
ANTH 405IDEAs in Action General Education logo Mental Health, Psychiatry, and Culture3
ANTH 422Anthropology and Human Rights3
ANTH 426Making Magic3
ANTH 442Health and Gender after Socialism3
ANTH/WGST 443IDEAs in Action General Education logo Cultures and Politics of Reproduction3
ANTH 445IDEAs in Action General Education logo Migration and Health3
ANTH 448IDEAs in Action General Education logo Health and Medicine in the American South3
ANTH 464Life and Violence3
ANTH 470Medicine and Anthropology3
ANTH 473Anthropology of the Body and the Subject3
ANTH 474The Anthropology of Disability3
ANTH 585Anthropology of Science3
ANTH 624IDEAs in Action General Education logo Anthropology and Public Health3
ANTH 649Politics of Life and Death3
AAAD 300IDEAs in Action General Education logo Cultures of Health and Healing in Africa3
AAAD 387IDEAs in Action General Education logo HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Diaspora3
IDST 112IDEAs in Action General Education logo Triple-I: Death and Dying3
IDST 124IDEAs in Action General Education logo Triple-I: Pandemics: Ethics, Literatures, and Cultures3

Special Opportunities

See the program page here for special opportunities.

Department of Anthropology

Visit Program Website

301 Alumni Building, CB#3115

(919) 962-1243

Program Director

Michele Rivkin-Fish

mrfish@unc.edu

Chair

Amanda Thompson

althomps@email.unc.edu

Associate Chair

Benjamin Arbuckle

bsarbu@email.unc.edu

Director of Graduate Studies

Townsend Middleton

ctm22@email.unc.edu

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Colin West

ctw@email.unc.edu