ABSTRACT
The proposed chapter focuses on ethnographic research applied to studies on health and wellness. Increasingly, health research agencies and pharmaceutical companies are aware of the value of ethnographies as a way to create contextual depth for emergent research and new hypotheses. The ethnographic method allows researchers to conduct interviews in the respondents’ environment and to observe research participants while they carry on with their daily routines. This method can lead to new patterns that reveal new directions in the creation of new products for people’s health and well-being. In the proposed article I will share records and observations that will enable the reader to understand the depth and the value of ethnographies when applied to real life issues and how the ethnographic method is pivotal to acquiring anthropological insights as the foundation for change. Part of the discussion will center on the body and the disease and research participant’s the subject’s perception in different contexts and among different social environments, such as their family, their assigned medical personnel, and other patients.
