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Human Services (HSRV) 326

Health Issues: Health and Healing (Revision 1)

HADM 326 course cover

Revision 1 is closed for registrations, replaced by current version.

Delivery Mode: Individualized study or grouped study.
Video component*.

*Overseas students, please contact the University Library before registering in a course that has an audio/visual component.

Credits: 3

Area of Study: Social Science

Prerequisite: None.

Precluded Course: HSRV 326 is a cross-listed course—a course listed under 2 different disciplines—HADM 326. (HSRV 326 may not be taken for credit if credit has already been obtained for NTST 326 or HADM 326.)

Faculty: Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences

Human Services Home Page

HSRV 326 has a Challenge for Credit option.

check availability

Overview

This three-credit, university-level course is designed to introduce the conceptual tools of medical anthropology. It will give students the opportunity to apply these tools to a consideration of the health status of First Nations people in Canada and of the role of medical pluralism in a culturally diverse nation state.

Outline

Part 1: Medical Ecology, Adaption, and Epidemiology introduces students to basic concepts in medical anthropology that will be used in Parts 2 and 3.

  • Unit 1: Medical Ecology
  • Unit 2: Epidemiology and Nutrition in Cross-cultural Perspective
  • Unit 3: Stress, Health and Healing

Part 2: The Practice of Healing and Health Care explores a variety of healing traditions from around the world and considers the ways in which these practices interact in a culturally diverse society such as that of Canada.

  • Unit 4: Paradigms and Therapies
  • Unit 5: Health Care in a Culturally Diverse Society
  • Unit 6: Political Ecology: Global and Local Interactions

Part 3: Canada's First Nations Peoples focuses on the traditional healing practices of First Nations peoples, their historical and contemporary health patterns, and their relationships with Canada's formal health care system.

  • Unit 7: Early History and Current Health Status
  • Unit 8: Culture Contact and Epidemiology
  • Unit 9: Traditional Healing and Medical Reciprocity
  • Unit 10: Native Healing and Health Pluralism, Holism and Self-determination

Evaluation

To receive credit for HSRV 326, you must obtain at least 50 percent on each of the quizzes (assignments), on the term paper, and on the examination. If you receive less than 50 percent on a quiz or the term paper, you may rewrite each one once to try to improve your grade. If you receive less than 50 percent on the examination, you may take one supplemental examination to try to improve your grade. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:

Quiz 1 (after
Unit 4)
Quiz 2 (after
Unit 9)
Term Paper (after
Unit 10)
Final Exam (after
Unit 10)
Total
15% 15% 30% 40% 100%

The final examination for this course must be taken online with an AU-approved exam invigilator at an approved invigilation centre. It is your responsibility to ensure your chosen invigilation centre can accommodate online exams. For a list of invigilators who can accommodate online exams, visit the Exam Invigilation Network.

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Course Materials

Textbooks

McElroy, Ann, & Patricia K. Townsend (2009). Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective, 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Waldram, James B., D. Ann Herring, & T. Kue Young. (2007). Aboriginal Health in Canada: Historical, Cultural, and Epidemiological Perspectives. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Other Materials

The course materials also include a student manual, study guide, and a reading file.

Special Instructional Features

HSRV 326 also uses videos that must be ordered from Athabasca University Library.

Challenge for Credit Course Overview

The Challenge for Credit process allows students to demonstrate that they have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university level course.

Full information for the Challenge for Credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.

Challenge Evaluation

To receive credit for the HSRV 326 challenge registration, you must achieve a grade of at least "C-" (60 per cent) on the examination.

Undergraduate Challenge for Credit Course Registration Form

Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized-study counterparts.

Opened in Revision 1, April 6, 2011

Last updated by SAS  07/07/2014 16:42:09