Culture as an explanation in population health (original) (raw)
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Cultural Differences and Health
.In recent years, the biopsychosocial approach to health has combined the World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of ‘health’ as “a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” and the current definition of ‘culture’ as “the thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups”; to form a more complex and multidimensional concept of health as a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being in which individuals are increasingly viewed as part of a larger network of forces, significantly influenced by their ‘culture’ or socio-cultural environments (Uskul & Sherman, 2009; Ritter & Hoffman, 2008). This paper explores the effect of culture on health by examining and differentiating between the belief structures and traditions in healing and death of two American ethnic groups: American Indians and Amish Americans.
Culture informs all human behavior; it allows us to exist as social animals. Yet no other variable used in health research is as poorly defined or tested as is culture (Dressler, Oths, & Gravlee, 2005; Hruschka, 2009). There has been surprisingly little attention to identify how culture works or to develop standards to guide the integration or application of culture in health research. This report provides the first multidisciplinary, consensus effort to define culture and identify the necessary scientific elements and methods required to identify what culture is and how it functions to influence health differentially among diverse population groups along the entire disease continuum from prevention and incidence to morbidity and mortality from most diseases.
The Lancet, 2014
Planned and unplanned migrations, diverse social practices, and emerging disease vectors transform how health and wellbeing are understood and negotiated. Simultaneously, familiar illnesses-both communicable and non-communicable-continue to aff ect individual health and household, community, and state economies. Together, these forces shape medical knowledge and how it is understood, how it comes to be valued, and when and how it is adopted and applied.
Culture as a variable in health research: perspectives and caveats
Health promotion international, 2014
To augment the rigor of health promotion research, this perspective article describes how cultural factors impact the outcomes of health promotion studies either intentionally or unintentionally. It proposes ways in which these factors can be addressed or controlled in designing studies and interpreting their results. We describe how variation within and across cultures can be considered within a study, e.g. the conceptualization of research questions or hypotheses, and the methodology including sampling, surveys and interviews. We provide multiple examples of how culture influences the interpretation of study findings. Inadequately accounting or controlling for cultural variations in health promotion studies, whether they are planned or unplanned, can lead to incomplete research questions, incomplete data gathering, spurious results and limited generalizability of the findings. In health promotion research, factors related to culture and cultural variations need to be considered, a...
Culture: The missing link in health research
Social Science & Medicine, 2016
Cross-cultural health Health disparities Culture and health Culture of science a b s t r a c t Culture is essential for humans to exist. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to identifying how culture works or developing standards to guide the application of this concept in health research. This paper describes a multidisciplinary effort to find consensus on essential elements of a definition of culture to guide researchers in studying how cultural processes influence health and health behaviors. We first highlight the lack of progress made in the health sciences to explain differences between population groups, and then identify 10 key barriers in research impeding progress in more effectively and rapidly realizing equity in health outcomes. Second, we highlight the primarily mono-cultural lens through which health behavior is currently conceptualized, third, we present a consensus definition of culture as an integrating framework, and last, we provide guidelines to more effectively operationalize the concept of culture for health research. We hope this effort will be useful to researchers, reviewers, and funders alike.
Health disparities or health inequalities refer to enduring differences between population groups in health status, well-being, and mortality. Health inequalities have been described by race, ethnic group, gender, and social class. A variety of theories have been proposed to account for health inequalities, including access to medical care and absolute material deprivation. Several theorists (including Michael Marmot and Richard Wilkinson) have argued that relative deprivation is the primary factor. By this they mean the inability of individuals to achieve the kind of lifestyle that is valued and considered normative in their social context. In this article, we show that the concept and measurement of cultural consonance can operationalize what Marmot and Wilkinson mean by relative deprivation. Cultural consonance is the degree to which individuals approximate, in their own beliefs and behaviors, the prototypes for belief and behavior encoded in shared cultural models. Widely shared...