CULTURE AND HUMAN HEALTH

This chapter seeks to address the issues of health and mental disorder within the framework of cross-cultural and cultural research. Health is a fundamental issue in all human societies and is the key to well-being and happiness. World organizations are involved in health promotions through the prevention of disease programs and the creation of primary care agencies. Specialists in health care have over time come to recognize the importance of the social sciences in successful promotion of healthy practices through the use of public education and the media. Successful approaches to health care must be based on accurate cross-cultural understandings of what is universal and what is culture-bound in illness related attitudes and values. The involvement of indigenous communities is important in order to achieve successful health intervention outcomes as shown in the creation of Aboriginal Health Centers in Australia (Larsen, 1978b; Peat, 1997). The very conceptions of health have been altered in response to advances in social science. Health is now considered to be a positive human state of well-being that is more than the absence of disease. Health has become conceptually complex and covers all dimensions of life and the mental and social well-being also covered in the term “quality of life” (Diener, 1996; Minsel, Becker, & Korchin, 1991). Subjective well-being takes into account all factors required for optimal human development from a person’s psychological life space and the cultural surroundings. In fact an interdisciplinary approach is essential in a campaign to reduce the health disparities so obvious in the world that are primarily related to socio-economic deficits (Anderson, 2009).

Cross-cultural psychology is making important contributions, particularly by providing an understanding of the cultural framework for both physical and mental health services (Kazarian & Evans, 1998). It is well recognized today that physical health and mental healthcare are interdependent, and must be understood within the framework of both cultural knowledge and cross-cultural comparative findings. Cross-cultural psychology has produced helpful knowledge in salient areas to better understand health-related cognition, but also in the assessments of emotional, behavioral and social aspects of life considered essential information for culturally based health practices and individual therapy (Berry, 1998). Cross-cultural researchers recognize the need for cultural sensitivity in delivering empirically verified treatment in a still heterogeneous world.

The need for cultural and cross-cultural knowledge is supported by the large scale differences in physical and mental health between various cultural groups (Gurung, 2010). Cultural values produce different conceptions about the nature of health and illness and indicate what treatment strategies will have optimal outcomes. Not all cultural groups are on a level playing field within or between nations and being poor are implicated in the etiology of most infectious and chronic disorders in the world. Low socio-economic status is linked consistently to elevated health related death rates and produces disadvantages from birth throughout life (Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, Guerin, Parramore, 2003).

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 844