Role Of Culture In Health Research Articles

Us and them: colonialism and racism in remote Aboriginal healthcare discourse

ABSTRACT Background The origins of modern Australia are settler colonialist, the logic of which initiated theft of land and attempted erasure of First Nations peoples. This study explores the role of non-Aboriginal Health Care Workers (HCWs) in the ongoing settler colonial project and the formation of mental models that lead to dualistic discourse embodying structural and interpersonal racism. Methods Using van Dijk’s sociocognitive model of Critical Discourse Analysis, colonial ideology, HCW mental models and discourse about Aboriginal people were explored. Results The dualistic categorisation of Us and Them underlies racist discourse around responsibility, dependence, health, illness and the role of culture in health. HCWs had poorly conceived ideas about cultural safety and demonstrated hierarchical thinking, exclusion and collusion in racism. Conclusions Remote HCWs will continue to propagate the ideology of settler colonialism unless cultural safety, critical reflexivity and anti-racism training are prioritised in cultural training.

The Role of Culture in Health Reporting Bias

In this paper, I creatively use the cognitive bias of self-control to express the differences between Eastern and Western cultures, and then clarify the formation mechanism of two types of health reporting behaviors: truthful reporting (in Western countries) and reporting only the good news while concealing unpleasant information (in East Asian countries). Using panel data from 13 countries from 2000 to 2016, I analyzed the role of culture in health reporting bias by using sex index and Confucianism dummy variable as proxy variables for culture. The results show that traditional variables have only a 50% explanatory ability in interpreting the reporting bias in health between East and West. Unobservable national individual factors such as culture that do not change over time can account for the remaining 44% of health reporting bias. Among these individual factors, 92.3% can be attributed to culture as represented by the sex index, and about 0.23% can be explained by the Confucianism dummy variable. In addition, the popularization of tertiary education can effectively correct the cognitive bias of self-control, thus eliminating the deep inhibition of culture on health reporting behavior. My research provides inspiration and technical support for improving the accuracy of self-reporting health in the future.

Experiential Learning and Cultural Competence: What Do Participants in Short-Term Experiences in Global Health Learn About Culture?

PurposeShort-term experiences in global health (STEGHs) have become a popular form of experiential learning in health professions education and provide an ideal setting to introduce the role of culture in health. Critics of the concept of cultural competence fear that learners will treat culture as a simplistic list of traits that denies the fluidity of culture and obscures other factors that contribute to health. To reduce disparities, they say, health professionals should approach culture in context. The purpose of this study was to explore how returning STEGH participants view the role of culture in health and apply it to subsequent clinical encounters. MethodThe authors convened focus groups of graduate students recently returned from three different STEGHs at a single health sciences institution. They used directed content analysis on the transcripts to identify student insights about how culture affected interactions with patients and clients in the host country and upon return to the United States. ResultsFocus group participants did not form strong impressions of the specific culture where they traveled. Two broad themes emerged about the role of culture in health and health care delivery: taking less resource-intensive approaches to treatment and recognizing the importance of culturally appropriate communication in health care delivery. DiscussionHealth professions students participating in these STEGHs did not demonstrate a view of culture as a static list of traits. Rather, their understanding of culture included an acknowledgement of structural conditions that affect the availability of resources and the need to avoid making assumptions about patients.

David Napier: cultivating the role of culture in health

Each autumn, in Adirondack Park, Upstate New York, David Napier invites a few kindred spirits to what he describes, tongue firmly in cheek, as a philosophers' camp in the grounds of his cabin in the woods. There, the fireside discussions will take in everything from the relations between epidemics and xenophobia to homelessness, and that's just to mention a couple of Napier's many interests. Talking to him before his guests arrive, it becomes clear that trying to pin down Napier's free-ranging career is no easy task.

Is modern Western culture a health hazard?

The cultures of societies are underestimated determinants of their population health and well-being. This is as true of modern Western culture, including its defining qualities of materialism and individualism, as it is of other cultures. This paper draws on evidence from a range of disciplines to argue that materialism and individualism are detrimental to health and well-being through their impacts on psychosocial factors such as personal control and social support. The focus of the resurgent scientific and political interest in the effects of the social environment on health has been on socioeconomic inequalities in health—especially those associated with income inequality. Two developments strengthen the case for paying more attention to the role of culture in health. The first is that, at the population level, the role of income inequality has become less clear, with recent research challenging the view that it is a major determinant of population health differences. 1–3