The perspective of mental illness and cultural beliefs often prevent many African Americans from seeking help. Lack of trust  for the medical profession  coupled with " we just don't talk about that kind of stuff outside of the family" often stands in the way of successful treatment.  

Hi Karen, so you telling me that even that even the discussion of what types of diseases someone had or have or the consequences of a particular disease relating to it in terms of cultural perspective would not be possible to be discussed in a forum as this?

I'm not looking at the perspective of a personal view but of a general idea as to why this common or rare disease in a cultural context has come about.

Please see the below paper authored by us, on traditional beliefs and practices of measles:  

S. Mishra, D.K. Behera, B.V. Babu and Y.S. Kusuma – Encounters with Talsa: worship and healing practices for measles among a rural-urban migrant Santal tribal community in Orissa, India. Mankind Quarterly, LII (1-2): 311-322 (2012).

If interested, please write for full paper.

Hi Brijesh, can I have access to the full document that you mention about, I would greatly appreciate it because I might use it in my referencing if I find it suitable to my task allocated.

Search on 'infant oral mutilation'.  This is where a child presenting with  febrile illness and/or diarrhea is subject to traditional extraction of unerupted teeth. This practice is found in sub-Saharan Africa.  There are few documented studies, however it may give you good insight into diseases and traditional beliefs. I am currently involved in developing a proposal to tackle the practice in Uganda.

Leprosy or Hansen's disease was traditionally believed to be a mutilating, contagious, and disfiguring disease.  China, India, and biblical civilizations isolated lepers off by themselves as pariahs.  In the 19th.c. Hansen discovered it was bacterial and not as contagious as had been feared.

htttp://www. webmd.com.skin-problems-and-treatments

I was given a collection of health problems/solutions by a group of Traditional Healers in the Kasenga District of  DR Congo several years ago.  Those papers, which cover a wide range of issues, can be accessed on my website www.healthedconnect.org.  Go to the bottom of the page and click on the picture at the far right.  I also conducted my doctoral research (unpublished) among Haitians researching the topic of health beliefs surrounding diarrhea in children.  Mal de Ojo played a major role.

One disease with a common misconception of its origin is HIV/AIDS.  In some areas of the developing countries people believed and or still believe that HIV/AIDS is a curse from God and only HE could healed a person from the disease. 

Any belief associated with HIV.AIDS is that it could be cured through prayers, which has caused some people to stop taking their antiretroviral therapy (ART).

You imply that culture is basically incorrect and belongs to primitive or at least pre-Modern societies (or contemporary remnants of these); many responses imply only developing countries have such culturally determined beliefs.  You're also nearly equating culture with religion, and contrasting it with some objective, true, and always accurate science.  But there's plenty of culture in science.  Have you noticed that most public health harbors ideas of free autonomous individuals?  At some level this idea is often used to "explain" things:  people get cancer because they (chose to) smoke or obese because they (chose to) eat to much and exercise too little.  These are cultural explanations based a notion of individuals derived from Christianity and modified by Science.  It even (typically) includes a moral judgement that implies they should have chosen to behave differently...people who smoke or are overweight are seen as morally deficient...culture...    

Thank you Douglas for your concerns. What I'm really carrying out here is researching on diseases that even before the modern science could clearly identify on what perspective it exist, the practices involved, the origins of it and the beliefs. That is why I'm basically identifying these diseases in a point where we see it in a traditional setting which I'm including it's culture being the main concepts behind the scenario. Including it's past religion  on the contrary that its in a traditional times. To be specific let's say diseases in the centuries when there were still no doctor-patient services.

I understand.  I was just trying to give you additional things to think about concerning this favorite topic of mine.  1.  Culture permeates Modern science.  2. There are still (and maybe always will be) non-scientific belief systems in Modern society, some of which will be applied to health and other bad outcomes.  Some contemporary Evangelicals believe AIDS is god's punishment for gays, and that god sends hurricanes to the US because we allow gay marriage, and that earthquakes strike Haiti because they made a deal with the devil long ago.  Wars are explained as evidence of god's displeasure with humanity.  God is credited with saving a child discovered three days after a tornado strikes but is exempt from blame for the hundreds of deaths due to the same tornado.  "Mysterious ways," indeed.  Some religions still see illness as a test of one's faith in god....21st century America... But there are also secular belief systems that are just as fanciful...individualism being a prime example.  Don't most scientists believe in "free will", for example, and doesn't this affect how they explain many things when not looking under a microscope?  My point is that you don't need to go to pre-Modern societies for you task.  Thanks for your question and good luck, Joe!  - Doug

You might look into Mal de Ojo.  I have found this belief in the Caribbean and all over Africa still today.  It was also prevalent during Biblical times.

Joe, 

The Health Belief Model (HBM) might provide insight related to assessing beliefs when researching a common on uncommon disease.  Although, HBM is an old exemplar, it was changed to accommodate the entire process of belief related to change of practice. Read these two articles http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15882247 and Theories of Change http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/cancerlibrary/theory.pdf which provide a detail explanation of belief, change and behavioral systems which need to be targeted in order to change behavior and practice.  In terms of belief systems there still exist in certain cultures disease is linked to a curse and not related to a practice which can be changed.  I conducted my research on breast cancer in young women, therefore targeted beliefs systems about whether or not young women do get breast cancer was something which need to be defined in the context of evidence.

Thank you all....

If you were to include mental illness, as disease, there is a long history of beliefs of what it is, the causes and cures that are still held  in many cultures.  For instance, as a curse, holy men of a culture were /are brought in to rid the affected ('possessed") individual by performing rituals.  This is still practiced, as exorcism.  Of course, there were also "cures" that were science-based, such as lobotomy.  Many non-western countries do not follow modern psychiatry and DSM dxs. 

This recommendation may be too late, but there is a fascinating book about the clash between western medicine and traditional medicine (from Asia)  called, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.  

I recommend the classic book "Persuasion and Healing" by Jerome Frank for a perspective on this subject.

Joe, I believe addressing the spiritual beliefs in the context of disease is an excellent undertaking.  The role of culture and spirituality within in the context of disease prevention has not been addressed as fully as it should be.  In a study I conducted related to breast cancer and young women reading this article was informative.  The intervention found "negative beliefs were strong predictors of whether or not women sought help for symptoms related to breast cancer (Grunfeld et al., 2003). "  Translating this to other diseases negative beliefs about healthcare systems often prevail in certain cultures. Do a journal article search on your topic.

This is the article

Grunfeld, E. A., Hunter, M.S., Ramirez, A.J., & Richards, M.A. (2003). Perceptions of breast cancer across the lifespan. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 54(2), 141-146. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12573735

African Americans' folk treatment for hypertension include things like garlic, lemon, and ginger.

To Douglas J. Myers,

That is so true, that culture is a factor that is often entwined in present-day thinking, not just in the past or in "other" cultures. Clinicians and scientists are part of their particular cultures, whether the mainstream one (the culture of power and privilege in the country) or a minority culture of the family or region.  Some are influenced by both and compartmentalize, leading to inconsistencies.  Even with training on objectivity as a virtue and policies encouraging an evidence-basis for practice (including giving advice), culture underpins belief. This may lead to Old Wives' tales being believed along with the more rigorously evidence-basis material.

This is particularly true in one of my main clinical areas (as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant). Clinicians in various fields, who should know better, tell mothers that there is no nutritional point in breastfeeding a child past some arbitary age, similarly to the Old Wives' Tale that the mother's milk 'turned to water' at a particular age. (The age was usually whatever age the baby was at time.) Of course, milk is milk and it continues to provide significant nutrients and anti-infective properties all through its duration, despite subtle changes to suit the age of the recipient child.

Years ago someone who was researching folk beliefs about 'milk stone' contacted me to exchange ideas. I was unable to help him and when I moved to another address I mislaid the correspondence. He mentioned cultures in Europe that believed that soaking the 'milk stone' in water and drinking the liquid from it had galactogoguic (milk-making) on women. If I remember correctly, he didn't identify the stone chemically or geologically. Do any of you know of this traditional belief and its consequent practice?  If so, where is it practiced today (or in recent times) and what locality-specific beliefs exist?

All good points, especially regarding culture.

However, I understood the question to mean, how some cultures are/were "treating" or "preventing" ("combat") a particular disease based on beliefs.  The cultural, here being either historical or without scientific/empirical knowledge, simply beliefs.

"The beliefs may be in the form of spirits, nature etc, and the practices that are used to combat this particular disease." and "Placing it in a cultural perspective when modern technologies were not yet available to either identify and point out it's origin."

In other words, beliefs as they lead to specific practices.

I would say that, culture is one of the very important and influencing aspect on the lives of every individuals.

As for us Melanesians; we view life in a cosmological way in order to interpret ideas and thoughts.(Gahare, 2014) Further more on this, we also view this through our interactions and behaviors towards us and the environment.

So to answer your question: in my area mouth cancer is one of the diseases that is destroying the lives of the people in the communities. This happen as a result of poison where the people used the spirits of the deaths to control them and to destroy the other person. For instance, if someone in a village is wealthy and the people respect him. But on the other side , his enemy will be jealous of him and use poison to kill or make the person get moth cancer in ways like giving him a poison betelnut for him to chew.

We worked on cultural beliefs and practices among an indigenous community living in an Indian city. If you are interested, please write for publications ([email protected]). 

This site has excellent information, and may be helpful for you. You can browse by clinical topic, or by culture. https://ethnomed.org/clinical 

Lynne Nguyen  Thank you!  Great site-- useful to many

Dear Joe,

Answer to your question could be as simple as stopping breastfeeding among some rural folks who think this will help reduce diarrhea in a child to complex practices and believes that are not only seen in developing but developed nations as well e.g. refusal for an emergency blood transfusion in case of Jehova's Witness. 

All the best for your research!

Best

Manpreet

Dear Manpreet,

Both those examples you mentioned are beliefs that are harmful. Do you have examples of beliefs that are helpful or neutral?

Dear Virginia,

Yes, there are certain traditional practices that are helpful e.g. practice of Circumcision among Muslims and Jews. This practice has some benefits. See this article by Mayo clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/circumcision/basics/why-its-done/prc-20013585

Rural Mothers in India usually carry their babies on one side. This helps prevent Development Dysplasia of the Hip. See this link, page 107: http://nrhm.gov.in/images/pdf/programmes/RBSK/Resource_Documents/RBSK%20Resource%20Material.pdf  

A six months old infant is traditionally started on Rice diet as the first complementary food to breast feeding in many places. See page 167 on above link as well. I think its because its least allergic but we should explore this more.

Best

Manpreet  

Thank you for your comment, Manpreet.  As regards preventing hip dysplasia, the traditional Chinese meh tai, made of soft cloth, kept the hips spread while the mother, grandmother or older sibling carried the infant on her back.

I used such a sling with my infants and prefer it to the more rigid ones with complicated clips or fastenings that are sold now in Western countries. When I started using one, they were unusual in Australia. The last time I used one was when my youngest was exactly two years old, rather old for the meh tai, but there was a severe cyclone raging outside and she was old enough to be able to open the door to go outside. In the meh tai she was safe on my back.

In the 1970s, someone bought a meh tai from me on the request of her physician, specifically to correct her infant's very slight hip dysplasia. Fr her, it wasn't just for prevention but for treatment. In contrast, the Native American cradle board kept the legs together and so didn't have the same benefit.