Overview
This three-credit, university-level course is designed to provide a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective on health and healing. The course gives students the opportunity to apply some conceptual tools of medical anthropology to examine the health status of First Nations people and other ethnic groups in Canada, while considering the role of medical pluralism in a culturally diverse nation state.
Outline
Part 1: Medical Ecology, Adaptation, and Epidemiology
- Unit 1: Medical Ecology
- Unit 2: Epidemiology, Nutrition, and Reproduction in Cross-cultural Perspective
- Unit 3: Stress, Health and Healing
Part 2: The Practice of Healing and Health Care.
- Unit 4: Paradigms and Therapies
- Unit 5: Health Care in a Culturally Diverse Society
- Unit 6: Cultural Considerations of Health, Illness, and Healing
- Unit 7: Political Ecology: Global and Local Interactions
Part 3: Canada’s First Nations Peoples.
- Unit 8: Early History and Current Health Status of Aboriginals
- Unit 9: Aboriginal Medicine in the Contemporary Context
Evaluation
To receive credit for HADM 326, you must complete all assessments, achieve a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent) and a grade of at least 50 percent on the Final Examination. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1 | 15% |
| Assignment 2 | 15% |
| Assignment 3: Term Paper | 30% |
| Final Exam | 40% |
| Total | 100% |
The final examination for this course must be requested in advance and written under the supervision of an AU-approved exam invigilator. Invigilators include either ProctorU or an approved in-person invigilation centre that can accommodate online exams. Students are responsible for payment of any invigilation fees. Information on exam request deadlines, invigilators, and other exam-related questions, can be found at the Exams and grades section of the Calendar.
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Srivastava, Rani, H. (Ed.). (2007). The healthcare professional’s guide to clinical cultural competence. Toronto: Elsevier Canada.
Physical course materials
The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:
McElroy, Ann, & Patricia K. Townsend (2015). Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective, (6th ed.) Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Other Materials
Most of the other course materials can be accessed online. Several video components will need to be borrowed from the AU Library.