Baer Roberta D, Weller Susan C, de Alba García Javier García, Rocha Ana L Salcedo
Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, USA.
Med Anthropol Q. 2008 Jun;22(2):148-66. doi: 10.1111/j.1548-1387.2008.00012.x.
We compare physicians and laypeople within and across cultures, focusing on similarities and differences across samples, to determine whether cultural differences or lay-professional differences have a greater effect on explanatory models of the common cold. Data on explanatory models for the common cold were collected from physicians and laypeople in South Texas and Guadalajara, Mexico. Structured interview materials were developed on the basis of open-ended interviews with samples of lay informants at each locale. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information from each sample on causes, symptoms, and treatments for the common cold. Consensus analysis was used to estimate the cultural beliefs for each sample. Instead of systematic differences between samples based on nationality or level of professional training, all four samples largely shared a single-explanatory model of the common cold, with some differences on subthemes, such as the role of hot and cold forces in the etiology of the common cold. An evaluation of our findings indicates that, although there has been conjecture about whether cultural or lay-professional differences are of greater importance in understanding variation in explanatory models of disease and illness, systematic data collected on community and professional beliefs indicate that such differences may be a function of the specific illness. Further generalizations about lay-professional differences need to be based on detailed data for a variety of illnesses, to discern patterns that may be present. Finally, a systematic approach indicates that agreement across individual explanatory models is sufficient to allow for a community-level explanatory model of the common cold.
我们比较了不同文化内部及不同文化之间的医生和非专业人士，重点关注不同样本之间的异同，以确定文化差异或非专业人士与专业人士之间的差异对普通感冒解释模型的影响更大。我们从南得克萨斯州以及墨西哥瓜达拉哈拉的医生和非专业人士那里收集了关于普通感冒解释模型的数据。结构化访谈材料是在对每个地区的非专业受访者样本进行开放式访谈的基础上形成的。我们使用结构化问卷从每个样本中收集关于普通感冒病因、症状和治疗方法的信息。我们采用共识分析来估计每个样本的文化信念。所有四个样本在很大程度上共享了一个普通感冒的单一解释模型，而非基于国籍或专业培训水平在样本之间存在系统差异，只是在一些子主题上存在差异，比如冷热因素在普通感冒病因中的作用。对我们研究结果的评估表明，尽管一直有人猜测文化差异或非专业人士与专业人士之间的差异在理解疾病解释模型的变化中哪个更重要，但收集到的关于社区和专业信念的系统数据表明，这些差异可能是特定疾病的一种表现。关于非专业人士与专业人士之间差异的进一步概括需要基于各种疾病的详细数据，以辨别可能存在的模式。最后，一种系统的方法表明，个体解释模型之间的一致性足以形成一个社区层面的普通感冒解释模型。
