Final Research Project Description:
Choose one (1) of the following diseases: Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, Leprosy, SARS, Polio, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, or H1N1 (if you have another widespread epidemic you want to write about please send me an e-mail for permission).
Explain in detail, the etiology and epidemiology of the disease and trace the history of how it affected the human population for the time period in which it was prevalent. What were the attempted medical and social interventions and preventions during that time period? You also need to include a detailed discussion of how the disease fits into either the ecological/evolutionary model of disease, or the political-economy model of disease. Validate this discussion with sources.
If a medical anthropologist could go back in time to contribute to the understanding of this disease, what specific contributions would they make? You need to bring in the course concepts in order to validate your discussion. For example, if there was stigma surrounding the disease, what type of information about the stigma of this disease would an anthropologist research. What cultural factors relate to the rise and spread of this disease, etc. How would a medical anthropologist be able to contribute to the understanding of this disease? In other words, your paper should not be a clinical or medical discussion of the disease, but an anthropological one using the concepts and theories you learned about in class.
Formatting Requirements – I prefer APA formatting, but as long as you use an accepted formatting style (MLA, etc.) it is fine.
*Paper should be 7-10 double spaced pages (not including cover page and reference page)
*1-inch margin all around
* I prefer 12 point Times New Roman font.
*Pages should be numbered
Make sure to reference any direct quote and to include a reference list at the end of the paper. I also want to say a few words about plagiarism. It seems like every semester I catch a student trying to pass off a paper they downloaded off the internet as their own. I am very good at catching this. Blackboard will also do an automatic plagiarism check when you submit your paper to the assignments folder. If I do catch anyone plagiarizing this paper, they will get an automatic 0 on the assignment. I don’t think I will have that problem in this class, but I always include this comment about plagiarism, just in case.
*Materials mostly cover in the providing PDF and Donald Joralemon’s Exploring Medical Anthropology.
