Association of Medical Anthropology is the first and the only Russian association of this kind, though it has analogues all over the world.

The largest association of this type is American “Society for Medical Anthropology” which is a section of the “American Anthropological Association”. It was the first association of this profile set up in the end of 60s- beginning of 70s of the XX century.

The Russian Association of Medical Anthropology is an independent non-commercial organization. It has close cooperation with the Association of Ethnologists and Anthropologists of Russia. The Russian Association of Medical Anthropology and its Board are located in Moscow – at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Science (IEA RAS).

Medical anthropology in the West is one of the mostly developed areas of the modern theoretical and applied anthropology, which is part of the social/cultural anthropology. This discipline research focus is health and disease, bio-cultural adaptations, healthcare systems and medical systems, alternative methods of healthcare, etc. Medical anthropology, both in Russia and abroad, was preceded by the physical medical anthropology and the medical ethnography/ethnology. At the present moment in the Russian science the medical anthropology actively develops in the framework of social/cultural anthropology, ethnology/ethnography, sociology, humanitarian medicine.

The Association of Medical Anthropology seeks to unite specialists in this area, to develop medical anthropology as a scientific, theoretical discipline, as well as an applied sphere of a new profession of medical anthropologists.