Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Common Cold: Data from Five Populations

Abstract

This paper focuses on conceptualizations of common cold among Latin Americans, as compared with middle-class Americans. Four geographically dispersed groups of Latin Americans were chosen for study: Guatemalans in Guatemala; Mexicans in Guadalajara, Mexico; persons of Mexican descent in Edinburg, Texas (on Texas-Mexican border); and Puerto Ricans in Hartford, Connecticut. In addition, a comparison group of middle-income Americans living in Tampa, Florida, was also studied to see extent to which folk concepts were seen in what is considered to be a mainstream population. The data suggest a great deal of both intra- and intercultural agreement as to causes, symptoms, and treatments of common cold. The cold seems to be viewed as very much in realm of a biomedical illness, with exception of ascribing hot/cold system of causality to common cold, among all five populations. Finally, cold is clearly differentiated from the flu, which seems to exist as an illness only among...