As part of the MA degree, students earn between six and 18 credit hours in a research concentration.
Medical anthropology is a subdiscipline of anthropology that includes the study of all aspects of health, illness and disease in human communities and populations. It draws on all of the perspectives that distinguish anthropology as a unique discipline: the analysis of human evolution and adaptation; cultural development, expressions, and variability; and historical change and continuity. Medical anthropology takes as its subject a broad range of specific topics, including the study of health care systems, factors that affect the distribution and determinants of disease in populations, maternal and child health, nutrition and food habits, human development, political ecology, health policy, and language and communication in health care contexts. Faculty in the department emphasize the applied dimensions of medical anthropology, preparing students for careers in public health, health care, and health sciences research. Courses in the department are complemented by electives in other departments (sociology, biology, psychology, history, geography) and programs on the UC Denver campus (health administration, public affairs, education) and at the Anschutz Medical Campus (schools of medicine, public health, pharmacy and nursing).
Courses
- ANTH 5014, Global Health Studies I: The Biocultural Basis of Health
- ANTH 5024, Global Health Studies II: Comparative Health Systems
- ANTH 5030, Ethnobiology
- ANTH 5040, Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
- ANTH 5060, Evolutionary Medicine
- ANTH 5150, Human Biocultural Adaptability
- ANTH 5230, Anthropology and Community Based Participatory Research
- ANTH 5260, Human Reproductive Ecology
- ANTH 5300, Migrant Health
- ANTH 5560, Human Ecology
- ANTH 5600, Medical Anthropology
- HBSC 7310, Environmental Epidemiology
Note: Students are also strongly encouraged to take elective courses in public health, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical campus' School of Public Health.
Those Interested in Advanced Study
A doctoral program on the UC Denver campus that may be of particular interest to graduates is the PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences. It is offered through the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences (http:\\clas.ucdenver.edu/hbsc) and is highly interdisciplinary. It is a natural extension of a master's degree in anthropology.
Fulltime Medical Anthropology Faculty
John Brett (PhD, University of California-Berkeley/University of California-San Francisco, 1994)
Nutrition, ethnoecology, evolutionary medicine, issues of sustainability; Mexico, Bolivia, rural Colorado
Sarah Horton (PhD, University of New Mexico, 2003)
Medical anthropology, globalization, migration and transnationalism, US Latinos; US Southwest, Mexico
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Steve Koester (PhD, University of Colorado, 1986)
Medical anthropology, political ecology
Marty Otanez (PhD, University of California-Irvine, 2004)
Political ecology, visual ethnography, media production, labor studies, health policy, tobacco control; Africa