Toward an ecology of women's reproductive health.

Abstract

Medical ecology has been one of the dominant theoretical strands in medical anthropology since the 1960s. It has come to be identified with a rather narrow range of research issues, concerning such matters as adaptation to climate and infectious disease, and has dealt with small-scale foraging societies. An ecological model has potential for dealing broadly with other health issues, in the case explored here, women's reproductive health, a topic that has frequently been approached from either a cultural or biological standpoint rather than the integrated one advocated here.