Medical anthropology and epidemiology: Divergences or convergences?

Abstract

Despite recent calls for greater collaboration between medical anthropologists and epidemiologists, examples of synthetic, interdisciplinary anthropological-epidemiological research are frankly rare, due in large part to perceptions among medical anthropologists that anthropology and epidemiology diverge considerably in their topics of inquiry, epistemological assumptions, methods of data collection and notions of risk and responsibility for illness. In this article, five of these perceived areas of divergence are examined, with an attempt to reconceptualize them as areas of potential convergence.medical anthropology epidemiology positivism methodology risk