Culture and Health is a course about how humans use their natural and social environments to maintain health and wellness, understand illness, and heal each other. Essentially, it is an introduction to medical anthropology, the study of medical and health care systems in a global context. We will examine topics such as CAM methods used in different cultures, how people handle life cycle events like birth, reproductive milestones, and death, and what types of medicines people use to treat illness. We will learn about medical disparities, or social inequalities in access to health care and how/why beliefs and personal perspectives on health care matter. We will also be doing applied research in this class on medical disparities.