Haitian culture offers a wide range of explanation for illness based upon the social, cultural and religious beliefs. The explanations are also dependent upon the locations and the class. They hold multiple views since they mainly rely on hybrid models which eventually lead them to consult for an illness from different persons. Haitian culture has divided illness in various groups. They are: maladi Bondye (Natural disease as an act of God), maladi peyi (short-term illness), maladi moun fè mal (cast of magic spells stemmed from human greed), maladi lwa (disease of God) and maladi Satan (Sickness sent by Satan) (Sterlin, 2006). Haitians often holds some unique views when it comes to health and sickness. The imbalance between hot and cold is considered as a natural ailment. They can arise from the condition of natural elements, such as, sun, rain, wind and dew. The emotional reaction to an environment of an individual is also considered another cause. The treatments followed by Haitians should follow the opposite of imbalance in order to regain the normal state. Compress, baths, herbal teas are often used to restore ailing health. Hot and cold foods, properties like heavy or light also point another factor among the local people. For instance, heavy food is normally preferred during daytime so as to gain maximum energy to sustain physical labor, while the light foods are taken in the evening (Nicolas, DeSilva, Grey, & Eastep, 2006) So it is clear that chronic ailments are treated with home remedy. In cases of serious diseases like Tuberculosis and AIDS, they retort to the modern medical standards. Mental health is often related to the supernatural forces. The problem in mental health that stems from various social causes like unde... ... middle of paper ... ... D. (2006). Using a Multicultural Lens to Understand Illnesses Among Haitians Living in America. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 702-707. Schwartz, T. (2008). Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Fraud, Food Aid and Drug Trafficking. BookSurge Publishing. Sterlin, C. (2006). Pour une approche interculturelle du concept de santé. Ruptures, revue transdisciplinaire en santé, 112-121. UNHCR. (2007). World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Haiti. Minority Rights Group International. Volpato, G., Godinez, D., Beyra, A., & Barreto, A. (2009). Uses of Medicinal Plants by Haitian Immigrants and Their Descendants in the Province of Camagüey, Cuba. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 1-9. WHO. (2010). Culture and Mental Health in Haiti: A Literature Review. Montréal: Culture and Mental Health Research Unit.
Jean Giddens (2013) defines culture as “a pattern of shared attitudes, beliefs, self-definitions, norms, roles, and values that can occur among those who speak a particular language, or live in a defined geographical region.” (Giddens, 2013). A person’s culture influences every aspect that person’s life. Beliefs affected by culture include how someone interacts within the family, how to raise children, the types of foods eaten, the style of clothes chosen, which religion is practiced, and the style of communication (including verbal, and body language, slang used etc.) (Giddens, 2013). In addition to these beliefs, health care practices are also affected by culture. The cause
The main characters, the Hmongs, are a culture of refugee families that supported CIA efforts in Laos. Their culture embeds deep spirituality into its health care, by the doctors of the Merced County hospital. The notion that herbs were strictly to heal the spirit was of course a source of contention for the physicians of the hospital, though nurses might feel that the symbolic effect alone is worth seizing. In other words, whether the physicians ...
Between the two cultures impacts the health and illness corse of Lisa Lee and her whole entire family.
Food in their culture many Haitians cannot afford food so many types healthy options are not available rice and beans are a national dish every day, many Haitians only eat twice a day, in the us we eat fruit whenever we want weather its night or day and in Haiti they eat fruit but it’s often given as a treat also as bed time
The purpose of the assessment is to address the competence of different cultures. As a number of Haitian immigrants in to the United States, it continues to grow at a steady rate (DeSilva, Gonzales-Eastep, Grey, & Nicolas, 2006). It is very important that mental health providers become better informed, and develop the skill sets necessary to combine the providers’ and clients’ cultural backgrounds into the treatment (DeSilva, Gonzales-Eastep, Grey & Nicolas, 2006). I will be conducting an assessment on, Mrs. Hudson an Haitian American woman who was referred by her primary care doctor, because of symptoms that; she is experiencing when she leaves her home. This is Mrs. Hudson’s first time to a mental health counselor.
Going to a different country or area of the world can open up anybody’s eyes to see that culture makes a huge impact on the understanding and practices of healthcare that seem to be so common to other areas of the world. When a person lives in one country their whole life, that person may not realize how different the life they live is from someone in a foreign country. If a person is going to receive treatment from someone with a different cultural background, they should be expected to get treatment to respects their own culture. Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences having such a diverse variety of students has their own cultural competency definition that states “effectively and comfortably communicate across cultures with patients of differing backgrounds, taking into account aspects of trust in order to adopt mutually acceptable objectives and measures”. In the book Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa by Katherine Dettwyler, the issue of culture and healthcare are greatly prevalent. Katherine Dettwyler herself goes to West Africa as an anthropologist and her horizons are broadened when during her research she comes in contact with how much culture has an impact on healthcare and everyday life.
Through showing the different definitions of health, the authors explain how those different understandings affect patterns of behavior on health depend on different cultures. In addition, an analysis of the models of health demonstrates even western medical approaches to health have different cognitions, same as the Indigenous health beliefs. The most remarkable aspect is a balance, a corresponding core element in most cultures which is an important consideration in Indigenous health as well. From an Indigenous perspective, health is considered as being linked, and keeping the connection is a priority to preserve their health. Consequently, health is a very much culturally determined. Health practitioners should anticipate and respect the cultural differences when they encounter a patient from various cultures. In particular, this article is good to understand why the Indigenous health beliefs are not that different than western medicine views using appropriate examples and comparative composition, even though the implementation the authors indicated is a bit abstract, not
Psychological distress, acculturation, and help-seeking attitudes were all measured using specific indexes and scales set for the point of interest. The hypotheses of this research was that even within the African American community, one would find disparities in the treatment of psychological issues – just based on the method of acculturation used, and their views on society. There are 4 basic modes of acculturation: traditionalist, assimilationist, integrationist, and marginalist. It is thought that the integrationist acculturation strategy is the best for optimizing and maximizing well-being. Although there is not a difference in the number of African Americans that have mental health problems when compared to European-Americans, the percentage of those who seek professional mental health services due to emotional distress is representatively lower. The rate at which African Americans receive psychological help services is half as much as that of European Americans – there is a need for an explanation of that statistic. The goal of this paper is to determine the reasoning behind the help-seeking disparities in African Americans and the field of psychological health. In order to make health services fair, we must first understand the reasoning behind why or why not one would seek out professional help in the first place. Understanding ethno cultural attitudes and other cultural variables will allow the health care field to better relate and help all people more uniformly and to the best of their needs.
Why are these background informations useful? Because these informations provide us some important basic knowledges of Haiti. As a country mainly composed of ex-slaves, Haiti is mainly composed of people of African origin. However, why is Haiti so poor compared to its other black majority neighbors such as Saint Kitts and Neves and Barbados? Because Haiti did not attain its independence through peaceful means. Haitian revolt against the French, and they indeed won, against Napoleon Bonaparte[2].
The word community is defined as a group of individuals residing in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. We all, whether we know this or not, belong to particular communities and even sub communities (self contained community within an unusually large area). One particular community that I've been a part of during my entire life is the Haitian community. An Haitian Community is usually a place where a group of Haitian nationals reside, we share many cultural beliefs and practices together. In this paper I will be investigating some of the beliefs and practices of the Haitian Community.
Kleinman, A. 1980. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. University of California Press.
In Haiti there is a system of child trafficking call “Restavek” parents give their children – its always a girl, to a stranger, to work as a slave. The narrative mentions “Marilaine is a very sweet 13-year-old from the countryside who is a restavek, she arrives at school with marks indicating she’s been beaten …” (Kristof) I’m angry at the fact that Haitian parents give their children away to function as a slave, putting the children in danger to be physically and mentally abuse because of the lack of resources. Barbara Ehrenreich is an American author and political activist who wrote an article called “It Is Expensive to Be Poor” there she mentions “The original welfare reform bill – a bill, it should be recalled, which was signed by President Bill Clinton – included an allocation of $100 million for “chastity training” for low-income women” It’s inhuman to control women from getting pregnant just because they can’t afford a pregnancy. Comparing both governments, they aren’t doing anything to change the inequality that exists in their countries social
The content of Paul Farmer’s AIDS & ACCUSATION: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, was very boring to begin with. Quite literally, I was sleeping while reading the beginning of it. However, it did pick up towards the middle as it caught my interest; I found that the book was particularly funny. Before reading this book, I had no clue what I was in for other than the title and who would’ve guessed; the title says it all. It was actually about what the title said. The United States blames Haiti for the AIDS and vice versa. Although, Haiti didn’t start with that; the Haitians believed in sorcery and voodoo. The idea of anyone that has someone with ill intent or maliciousness towards them can cause them to become sick with diarrhea, was a chortle. Farmer goes deep into the book as he gives descriptions of three people who came across AIDS. However, these Haitians all believed that it was sorcery or some malign magic of someone who had despised them. The curiousness of one the cases was Manno, one of the Haitians that Farmer had interviewed, who was said to be kind, “Manno never hurt anyone; on the contrary, one thing he was known for was his ready smile. So why would someone wish to harm him?”(Farmer, 76)
Lindberg, D. (n.d.). Herbal Medicine: MedlinePlus. U.S National Library of Medicine. Retrieved May 7, 2014, from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/herbal
In the first place, when people use alternative medicine, they consume fewer drugs and chemicals in to their bodies and there are fewer side effects to the human beings. This means that, when people get caught in any kind of disease, if they use herbal therapies to heal their illnesses, they do not harm their organs and systems. They can drink a bowl of soup, a cup of tea or a bottle of water regularly if they want to get rid of the pathogens or aches such as sprain, head wrist and ankle. For instance, it is known that there is a man who used to use walking stick for a few y...