Alternative and Bio-Medicine in Israel

Judith T. Shuval (Ph.D. Harvard University) is professor emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she holds the Rose Chair in the Sociology of Health. She has served as chair of the Israel Sociological Association, as a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Medical Sociology, on the executive committee of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Health of the International Sociological Association, and on the editorial board of Social Science and Medicine and Sociology of Health and Illness. Her publications include Social Dimensions of Health: The Israeli Experience and Immigrant Physicians: Former Soviet Doctors in Israel, Canada, and the United States.Emma Averbuch (PhD Hebrew University) teaches sociology of health in the Braun School of Public Health, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. She coordinates activities regarding coping with inequality in health at the Israel Ministry of Health.

This book explores the macro and micro social contexts in which alternative and bio-medicine co-exist in Israel. It includes a history of alternative health care in Israel and analysis of current policies and dilemmas regarding different forms of health care, and provides an in-depth analysis of medical professionals who have added alternative health care to their repertoire of professional skills in their practice settings in hospitals and community clinics. The heterogeneity of patient populations in Israel makes it possible to explore attitudes of different cultural groups toward alternative health care. These include Jewish immigrants from different countries as well as Bedouin and other Arab groups. Since alternative medicine is a growing part of the overall health care system in many countries, the book provides insights gained from the Israeli experience regarding its co-existence along with conventional medicine-to a broad spectrum of health professionals, policy makers and laypersons.