Educate on the proper use of medications: Anthropological perspective and challenges

Abstract

Medicines constitute a thing with a social life. Medicines evolve parallel to cultural, scientific, technological and global health advances. The generation and use of medicines respond to the social dynamics of spatiotemporal and cultural contexts. #is paper discusses medicines’ current social and cultural positioning from an anthropological perspective. Highlighting the presence of medicines in art, music, literature, advertising, and social media, aims to call for implementing health policies that promote the proper use of medicines and related products such as dietary and herbal supplements. Giving the entire population access to health education would guarantee good practice in the use of medicines. Educating for health demands a transversal analysis between knowledge of different social actors to restore the universality of the health concept. We discuss some necessary elements of this analysis in the final sections.