Ethnomedicine in healthcare systems of the world: a Semester at Sea pilot survey in 11 countries

An understanding and appreciation for the varied healthcare systems in use throughout the world are increasingly vital for medical personnel as patient populations are now composed of ethnically diverse people with wide-ranging belief systems. While not a statistically valid survey, this pilot study gives a global overview of healthcare differences around the world. A pilot study of 459 individuals from 11 different countries around the world was administered by 33 students in the upper division course, People, Pathology, and World Medicine from Semester at Sea, Fall 2007, to ascertain trends in healthcare therapies. Open-ended surveys were conducted in English, through an interpreter, or in the native language. Western hospital use ranked highly for all countries, while ethnomedical therapies were utilized to a lesser degree. Among the findings, mainland China exhibited the greatest overall percentage of ethnomedical therapies, while the island of Hong Kong, the largest use of Western hospitals. The figures and trends from the surveys suggest the importance of understanding diverse cultural healthcare beliefs when treating individuals of different ethnic backgrounds. The study also revealed the increasingly complex and multisystem-based medical treatments being used internationally

Social sciences research in neglected tropical diseases 2: A bibliographic analysis

The official published version of the article can be found at the link below.Background There are strong arguments for social science and interdisciplinary research in the neglected tropical diseases. These diseases represent a rich and dynamic interplay between vector, host, and pathogen which occurs within social, physical and biological contexts. The overwhelming sense, however, is that neglected tropical diseases research is a biomedical endeavour largely excluding the social sciences. The purpose of this review is to provide a baseline for discussing the quantum and nature of the science that is being conducted, and the extent to which the social sciences are a part of that. Methods A bibliographic analysis was conducted of neglected tropical diseases related research papers published over the past 10 years in biomedical and social sciences. The analysis had textual and bibliometric facets, and focussed on chikungunya, dengue, visceral leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis. Results There is substantial variation in the number of publications associated with each disease. The proportion of the research that is social science based appears remarkably consistent (<4%). A textual analysis, however, reveals a degree of misclassification by the abstracting service where a surprising proportion of the "social sciences" research was pure clinical research. Much of the social sciences research also tends to be "hand maiden" research focused on the implementation of biomedical solutions. Conclusion There is little evidence that scientists pay any attention to the complex social, cultural, biological, and environmental dynamic involved in human pathogenesis. There is little investigator driven social science and a poor presence of interdisciplinary science. The research needs more sophisticated funders and priority setters who are not beguiled by uncritical biomedical promises

Islamophobia in the National Health Service: an ethnography of institutional racism in PREVENT's counter‐radicalisation policy

In 2015, the UK government made its counter‐radicalisation policy a statutory duty for all National Health Service (NHS) staff. Staff are now tasked to identify and report individuals they suspect may be vulnerable to radicalisation. Prevent training employs a combination of psychological and ideological frames to convey the meaning of radicalisation to healthcare staff, but studies have shown that the threat of terrorism is racialised as well. The guiding question of our ethnography is: how is counter‐radicalisation training understood and practiced by healthcare professionals? A frame analysis draws upon 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork, which includes participant observation in Prevent training and NHS staff interviews. This article demonstrates how Prevent engages in performative colour‐blindness – the active recognition and dismissal of the race frame which associates racialised Muslims with the threat of terrorism. It concludes with a discussion of institutional racism in the NHS – how racialised policies like Prevent impact the minutia of clinical interactions; how the pretence of a ‘post‐racial’ society obscures institutional racism; how psychologisation is integral to the performance of colour‐blindness; and why it is difficult to address the racism associated with colourblind policies which purport to address the threat of the Far‐Right

Perspectives on child diarrhoea management and health service use among ethnic minority caregivers in Vietnam

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Vietnam, primary government health services are now accessible for the whole population including ethnic minority groups (EMGs) living in rural and mountainous areas. However, little is known about EMGs' own perspectives on illness treatment and use of health services. This study investigates treatment seeking strategies for child diarrhoea among ethnic minority caregivers in Northern Vietnam in order to suggest improvements to health services for EMGs and other vulnerable groups.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study obtained qualitative data from eight months of field work among four EMGs in lowland and highland villages in the Northern Lao Cai province. Triangulation of methods included in-depth interviews with 43 caregivers of pre-school children (six years and below) who had a case of diarrhoea during the past month, three focus group discussions (FGDs) with men, and two weeks of observations at two Communal Health Stations (CHGs). Data was content-analyzed by ordering data into empirically and theoretically inspired themes and sub-categories assisted by the software NVivo8.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This study identified several obstacles for EMG caregivers seeking health services, including: gender roles, long travelling distances for highland villagers, concerns about the indirect costs of treatment and a reluctance to use government health facilities due to feelings of being treated disrespectfully by health staff. However, ethnic minority caregivers all recognized the danger signs of child diarrhoea and actively sought simultaneous treatment in different health care systems and home-based care. Treatments were selected by matching the perceived cause and severity of the disease with the 'compatibility' of different treatments to the child.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In order to improve EMGs' use of government health services it is necessary to improve the communication skills of health staff and to acknowledge both EMGs' explanatory disease models and the significant socio-economic constraints they experience. Broader health promotion programs should address the significant gender roles preventing highland mothers from seeking health services and include family elders and fathers in future health promotion programs. Encouraging existing child health care practices, including continued breastfeeding during illness and the use of home-made rehydration solutions, also present important opportunities for future child health promotion.</p

The Social Construction of Attachment, Attachment Disorders and Attachment Parenting in International Adoption Discourse and Parent Education

This article examines how ideas about forming emotional attachments with internationally adopted children are communicated to parents via adoption agencies, parenting courses, magazines, books and websites. In adoptive parent education, attachment is often presented as an elusive goal that requires concerted effort to achieve, without which the child may suffer from an attachment disorder with lifelong psychological and behavioural consequences. The result is the promotion of intensive parenting practices derived from, but also exceeding, those advocated by the 'attachment parenting' philosophy, practices that are often demanding, inflexible and proscriptive, yet only tenuously connected to their supposed evidence base in psychology. Copyrigh

Talking About Culture With Internationally Adoptive Parents: An Anthropological Perspective

Parents who adopt internationally are commonly implored to expose their children to their “birth cultures.” While this celebration of origins is praiseworthy, the approach to “culture” that it typically involves is arguably problematic. This article discusses what anthropologists mean by culture and how this differs from the way culture is treated in international adoption. It then considers what medical anthropologists have learned through decades of evolving discussions about how to teach “cultural competency” to health care providers and suggests that the insights from these debates can be applied to encourage a more nuanced approach to “cultural competency” among adoptive parents