This work examines the significant health problems facing South Asia today and assesses the ways in which these problems are approached by those directly engaged in primary health care. It aims to emphasize the relevance of anthropological research to international health/medical anthropology.

Section One Women’s Reproductive Health 1. Cultural Notions of Fertility in South Asia and Their Impact on Sri Lankan Family Planning Practices 2. The Ethnophysiology and Folk Dietetics of Pregnancy: A Case Study from South India 3. Modern Methods of Fertility Regulation: When and for Whom Are They Appropriate? Section Two Child Survival 4. Health Social Science Research on the Study of Diarrheal Disease: A Focus on Dysentery 5. Social Science Lessons from Diarrhea Research and Their Application to ARI 6. Acute Respiratory Illness: Popular Health Culture and Mother’s Knowledge in the Philippines Section Three Pharmaceutical Practice 7. Popular Perceptions of Medicine: A South Indian Case Study 8. Paying for What Ails You: Sociocultural Issues Influencing the Ways and Means of Therapy Payment in South India 9. Pharmaceuticals, the Commodification of Health, and the Health Care-Medicine Use Transition Section Four Health Service Research and Health Communication 10. Vaccinations in the Third World: A Consideration of Community Demand 11. The Primary Health Care Center as a Social System: Primary Health Care, Social Status, and the Issue of Team- Work in South Asia 12. Drink Boiled Cooled Water: A Cultural Analysis of a Health Education Message 13. Education by Appropriate Analogy