Bending Bones: An Interdisciplinary Approach in Anthropology

Anthropology, and its contributing sub-disciplines, can be used in conjunction with sociology, history, and public health records to address and better understand elements of the human past, present, and future. This presentation will illustrate how anthropology is a multifaceted social science that can incorporate other disciplines to better understand historical events and their outcomes. The author’s current research on health disparities and trauma will be discussed as an example of how anthropology and history provide further knowledge about the stresses associated with health, race, enslavement, liberation, and in-migration amongst 19th-century-born African Americans. Health disparities observed in these historic groups still resonate in the Black community today. Anthropological research offers perspectives into the past that can provide evidence as to why these current differences exist, thereby creating new discourse in the medical and public health communities.