Читать книгу The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology - Группа авторов - Страница 65

In conclusion, culture has, does, and will continue to influence health-related behavior. There is a wealth of social science and, in particular, medical sociology research demonstrating the pervasiveness of cultural values and norms upon preventive health behavior, illness behavior, and sick-role behavior among individuals and groups as well as at the macro-level of healing systems.

The preceding discussion has highlighted three additional features of the study of culture in health and illness. The first of these features is the remarkable confluence of different and even opposite schools of thought in sociology concerning the need to analyze culture as an independent phenomenon, and the influence of culture upon agency and structure. The affective nature and subjectivity of one’s perceived identity as member of an ethnic group and the permeability of cultural boundaries are ideas found implicitly or explicitly in Durkheim, Weber, Parsons, as well as in Goffman, Foucault, and Habermas, among others. The second feature is the divergence of healing systems. Healing systems are not always internally consistent; different interpretations of the core values or principles of the system may be held by subgroups within the system. The third feature is pragmatic acculturation, that is, the borrowing from other cultures of elements, ways of thinking and ways of doing things, with the objective of solving specific or practical problems. This borrowing is very prevalent in matters of health and illness and is found in all types of health-related behavior. Finally, a comprehensive review of the relevant literature is not possible in this chapter given the enormous body of medical sociology research on health and culture. Instead, illustrations and the list of references are offered for each main argument in this discussion in the hope that the reader be enticed to pursue his or her own journey into this engaging research topic.