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.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Core Requirements | ||
| Select two foundational courses: | 6 | |
 First-Year Seminar: Darwin's Dangerous Idea H | ||
| First-Year Seminar: Saving the World? Humanitarianism in Action | ||
| Introduction to Biocultural Medical Anthropology | ||
| Comparative Healing Systems | ||
| Living Medicine | ||
| Global Health | ||
| Select two research methods and experience courses (see list below) | 6 | |
| Select five elective courses, apportioned in the following ways: 1 | 15 | |
At least one from the biological/ecological elective list (see below) | ||
At least one from the sociocultural elective list (see below) | ||
No more than two of the five courses can be at the 100-level or below | ||
| Total Hours | 27 | |
| 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
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| ANTH 240 | Action Research | 3 |
| ANTH 248 | Anthropology and Public Interest | 3 |
| ANTH 297 | Directions in Anthropology H | 3 |
| ANTH 326 | Practicing Medical Anthropology | 3 |
| ANTH 390 | Special Topics in Medical Anthropology | 3 |
| ANTH 393 | Internship in Anthropology 1 | 1-12 |
| ANTH 395 | Research in Anthropology H | 1-6 |
| ANTH 396 | Independent Reading or Study in Anthropology 1, H | 1-6 |
| ANTH 414 | Laboratory Methods: Human Osteology | 3 |
| ANTH 419 | Anthropological Application of GIS | 3 |
| ANTH 450 | Ethnographic Research Methods | 3 |
| ANTH 582 | Fieldwork with Social Models of Well-Being | 3 |
| ANTH 625 | Ethnography and Life Stories | 3 |
| ANTH 650 | Reconstructing Life: Nutrition and Disease in Past Populations | 3 |
| ANTH 675 | Ethnographic Method | 3 |
| ANTH 676 | Research Methods in Human Biology | 3 |
| ANTH 691H | Seniors Honors Project in Anthropology | 3 |
| 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
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| ANTH 143 | Human Evolution and Adaptation | 3 |
| ANTH 148 | Human Origins | 3 |
| ANTH 151 | Anthropological Perspectives on Food and Culture | 3 |
| ANTH/AMST/NUTR 175 | Introduction to Food Studies: From Science to Society | 3 |
| ANTH 217 | Human Biology in Comparative Perspective | 3 |
| ANTH/ENEC 237 | Food, Environment, and Sustainability | 3 |
| ANTH 252 | Archaeology of Food | 3 |
| ANTH 298 | Biological Anthropology Theory and Practice | 3 |
| ANTH 315 | Human Genetics and Evolution | 3 |
| ANTH 318 | Human Growth and Development | 3 |
| ANTH 437 | Evolutionary Medicine | 3 |
| ANTH 446 | Poverty, Inequality, and Health | 3 |
| ANTH 471 | Biocultural Perspectives on Maternal and Child Health | 3 |
| ANTH 538 | Disease and Discrimination in Colonial Atlantic America | 3 |
| ANTH 623 | Human Disease Ecology | 3 |
Electives in Sociocultural Medical Anthropology
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| ANTH 272/ENGL 264 | Healing in Ethnography and Literature | 3 |
| ANTH 278 | Women in Science | 3 |
| ANTH/PWAD 280 | Anthropology of War and Peace | 3 |
| ANTH 320 | Anthropology of Development | 3 |
| ANTH 325 | Emotions and Society | 3 |
| ANTH 328 | Anthropology of Care | 3 |
| ANTH 405 | Mental Health, Psychiatry, and Culture | 3 |
| ANTH 422 | Anthropology and Human Rights | 3 |
| ANTH 426 | Making Magic | 3 |
| ANTH 442 | Health and Gender after Socialism | 3 |
| ANTH/WGST 443 | Cultures and Politics of Reproduction | 3 |
| ANTH 445 | Migration and Health | 3 |
| ANTH 448 | Health and Medicine in the American South | 3 |
| ANTH 464 | Life and Violence | 3 |
| ANTH 470 | Medicine and Anthropology | 3 |
| ANTH 473 | Anthropology of the Body and the Subject | 3 |
| ANTH 474 | The Anthropology of Disability | 3 |
| ANTH 585 | Anthropology of Science | 3 |
| ANTH 624 | Anthropology and Public Health | 3 |
| ANTH 649 | Politics of Life and Death | 3 |
| AAAD 300 | Cultures of Health and Healing in Africa | 3 |
| AAAD 387 | HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Diaspora | 3 |
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