BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to assess information available in the dental literature on oral health-related cultural beliefs. In the US, as elsewhere, many racial/ethnic minority groups shoulder a disproportionate burden of oral disease. Cultural beliefs, values and practices are often implicated as causes of oral health disparities, yet little is known about the breadth or adequac...

Health attributions influence health beliefs and subsequent health behaviors. Health attributions are partly shaped by culture. In turn, cultural health attributions affect beliefs about disease, treatment, and health practices. Likewise, culture influences health and healing practices. Certain cultures have culture-bound syndromes about which medical practitioners should be trained. Other soci...

It is usually impossible to know if reported differences between cultures are due to cultural differences or due to a difference in the methods used to study the cultures. This paper describes a collaborative, multisite study using a shared methodology to study intra- and inter-cultural variation in beliefs. A series of standard interview schedules were used to study Latin American beliefs abou...

In today's multicultural society, assuring quality health care for all persons requires that physicians understand how each patient's sociocultural background affects his or her health beliefs and behaviors. Cross-cultural curricula have been developed to address these issues but are not widely used in medical education. Many curricula take a categorical and potentially stereotypic approach to ...

OBJECTIVES Guided by a Sociocultural Health Belief Model (SHBM), this study examined the roles of cultural beliefs of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and scientific knowledge of AD in influencing the perceived threat of AD in a sample of Chinese American older adults. METHOD With the input from focus groups of 17 older Chinese volunteers, survey questionnaires were refined and then delivered through...

The world will be harmonious one, the people with different religious beliefs in the world should strengthen close intercultural communication. And the intercultural communication will avoid any different wrong recognition about religious beliefs and respect different religious beliefs from different countries and cultures. Otherwise, it will cause unstable, inharmonious and terrible disaster o...

In today’s multicultural society, assuring quality health care for all persons requires that physicians understand how each patient’s sociocultural background affects his or her health beliefs and behaviors. Cross-cultural curricula have been developed to address these issues but are not widely used in medical education. Many curricula take a categorical and potentially stereotypic approach to ...

Mythical and religious belief systems in a social context can be regarded as a conglomeration of sacrosanct rites which revolve around substantive values that involve an element of faith. Moreover, we can conclude that ideologies, myths and beliefs can all be analyzed in terms of systems within a cultural context. The significance of being able to define ideologies, myths and beliefs as systems...

A person’s health profile includes his/her personal health history and his/her cultural, social, economic and environmental health beliefs. This is particularly true for migrants as they bring these histories and beliefs with them when moving. Migration can thus create situations where cultural and ethnic reproductive and sexual health practices differ from and sometimes conflict with those of ...