Toward an ecology of women's reproductive health

Townsend, Patricia K.; McElroy, Ann

doi:10.1080/01459740.1992.9966064

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This section has demonstrated issues in the study of women's health for which biocultural research designs could be developed. Similar issues have been raised in reference to seasonality and women's work (Huss-Ashmore and Goodman 1988), ecological dimensions in differential survival of male and female children (MacCormack 1988), and medical ecology models for study of women's reproductive health issues (Townsend and McElroy 1990).…”

Section: Management Of the Postpartum Periodmentioning

confidence: 86%

Biocultural Models in Studies of Human Health and Adaptation

McElroy

1990

Med Anthropol Q

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biocultural studies, defined as research on questions of human biology and medical ecology that specifically includes social, cultural, or behavioral variables in the research design, offer valuable models for studying the interface between biological and cultural factors affecting human well‐being. Two models of biocultural research predominate in health studies: one which integrates biological, environmental, and cultural data, and a second, more segmented model in which biological data are primary and data on culture and environment are secondary. Although critics have claimed that biological studies ignore the role of social and political systems in health, the studies included in this issue counter such criticism with research models that include cultural and political stressors. To illustrate an additional dimension of the integrative biocultural approach, I discuss models for understanding morning sickness, perception and tolerance of pain in labor, and depression in the postpartum period. Though these phenomena are clearly both biologically and culturally determined, they are usually studied by anthropologists only in their cultural dimension and by medical researchers in their biological dimension. Biocultural study of reproduction and of other aspects of women's health will contribute to transdisciplinary collaboration and, it is hoped, will also reduce the fragmentation of medical anthropology.

show abstract

Section: Management Of the Postpartum Periodmentioning

confidence: 86%

Biocultural Models in Studies of Human Health and Adaptation

McElroy

1990

Med Anthropol Q

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Women across sub‐Saharan Africa who engage in productive agricultural labor, domestic work, reproduction, and childcare across their lifespans, face a challenging set of energetic commitments that may result in malnutrition (Little et al, ; Townsend and McElroy, ). As suggested here, we expect the BaAka in transition to agricultural and market economies at APDS to also be at risk.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

BaAka women's health and subsistence practices in transitional conservation economies: Variation with age, household size, and food security

Robinson

Remis

2015

American J Hum Biol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Here, we identify older BaAka women, caring for their own children and grandchildren, as particularly vulnerable to economic changes and food insecurity. We found older women, especially those in a community with greater restrictions on access to forest resources to have more dependents, reduced market integration, and low BMI relative to younger women in the population. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:453-460, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

show abstract

“…I consider political ecology, or dialectal biocultural anthropology, to be superior to other models of human-environment interactions, including the ecology of health model that Patricia Townsend and I have been developing for several decades (McElroy and Townsend 1996; Townsend and McElroy 1992). The central critique presented is that medical ecology "tends to downplay political and economic factors" and "fails to 'consider the relation of people to their environment in all its complexity' " (Baer, p. 452, quoting Turshen 1977).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%