Social representations of health and illness: the case of the Chinese community in England

Abstract

This paper reports results from a qualitative study on social representations of health and illness among the Chinese community in England. It is assumed that representations of health and illness are grounded in cultural frameworks and are constructed through communication, social interaction and the practices of daily life. Our ®ndings show that in spite of dierences related to age and degrees of acculturation, Chinese people in England share a common representational system with respect to health and illness. This system is based on the traditional notions of``balance'' and``harmony'' between the interdependent forces of Yin and Yang. Health results from balance, whereas illness is brought about by disequilibrium. It is through these traditional Chinese concepts that Western biomedical knowledge is incorporated, producing a mixed representational ®eld where Chinese and Western knowledge co-exist. This representational ®eld is transmitted through the most fundamental dimensions of culture: food, language and kinship relations. We conclude by showing that social representations of health and illness are inseparable from the struggles over identity experienced by the Chinese people in England.Contract/grant sponsor: Health Education Authority. are grounded in cultural frameworks helps to understand how people use, make sense of, and comply with health care. Besides, the co-existence of dierent cultural backgrounds, dierent ways of life and dierent traditions within single contexts has been acutely intensi®ed by the transformations brought about by conditions of late modernity. People, perhaps more than ever before, must face the displacement of taken-for-granted beliefs and open up to other ways of life.These issues place new demands on health intervention related to ethnic groups. Sensitivity to such a context is one of the great challenges confronting health education programmes. Since the Thirtieth World Health Assembly in 1977, the World Health Organization has ocially recognized the importance of integrating traditional medicines into health care systems. This policy change was based on the understanding that the traditional medical knowledge which permeates lay thinking can work as an added resource for health care delivery (World Health Organization, 1978). Culture and traditional knowledge shape how people think, feel, perceive and socially represent questions of health and illness. This is not a trivial issue, considering that it is in the lay, popular, non-professional sector of society that the vast majority of healthrelated decisions are made. It is estimated that between 70% and 90% of all healthrelated decisions are made outside the formal health sector, mainly in the family, but also around social networks and community activities. This is the case in both Western and non-Western societies (Kleinman, 1986). In the course of everyday life, social actors recognize, de®ne, label and explain ill-health. On this basis, health care activities are initiated. These include all the therapeutic options that ...

Mental health help seeking among Filipinos: a review of the literature

“…This is made even more salient given that 70% to 90% of all healthrelated decisions are made outside of the formal health sector, which includes families, social networks, and community, both in the Western and non-Western settings (Jovchelovitch & Gervais, 1999;Kleinman, 1986). However, Philippine folk conceptualizations of illnesses do not differentiate between physical and mental disorders, and a review of how both medical and psychological illnesses are framed suggests that Filipinos conceptualize disorders differently from the medical model (Araneta, 1993;Tan, 1987Tan, , 2008.…”

Mental ill health in the elderly: medical students’ social representations in the United Kingdom

“…Health and illness are relevant dimensions in social representations research due to their influence in orienting health-related attitudes (17) . In this context, mental health constitutes a contentious area of research in social representations.…”

Ethnic Experience of Cancer: A Qualitative Study of Chinese–Australians in Brisbane, Queensland

“…As research has revealed, many of these health care beliefs and practices were preserved in the Chinese migrant communities and survive into contemporary western societies (Green et al, 2006;Jovchelovitch & Gervais, 1999;Lai & Chappell, 2007;Lee et al, 2001;Wong-Kim, Sun & DeMattos, 2003).…”