Culture, Health, and Illness: Examining Epidemiology and AIDS Pandemic

This essay examines the influence of cultural factors on health and illness, with a specific focus on epidemiology and the AIDS pandemic. It discusses how cultural practices, such as ritual cannibalism and lifestyle choices, can contribute to the spread of diseases. The essay also explores the negativ...Read More

Running head: CULTURE, HEALTH AND ILLNESS 1
Culture, health, and illness
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CULTURE, HEALTH AND ILLNESS 2
Chapter 15 - Cultural factors in Epidemiology
Epidemiology refers to the study of determinants and distribution of different kind of
infections in human populations (TANWAR 2018). The following are some of the cultural
factors that have increased the spread of diseases in a population.
Brown and Murphy who are known sociologists were able to show that there is a
relationship between health and social class in the United Kingdom. They demonstrated how
people of a lower socio-economic class have a high mortality rate and poor health compared
to those of effluent classes. In third world countries, health and income clearly relate.
Populations in most of these countries are already weakened by poor nutrition and this has
made them susceptible to communicable and other infectious diseases (Semenza & Ebi
2019). These infections are mostly transmitted through poor sanitation, inadequate housing
and polluted water which would have been improved by enough income.
Ritual cannibalism of relatives who have died is common in the Eastern Highlands of New
Guinea. This has led to the spread of kuru which is a progressive degenerative infection of
the brain known to infect children and women. The ritual cannibalism was common in
women and children.
Research also reveals that cultural behavioural practices such as drinking, smoking,
avoiding nutritious drugs, taking narcotic drugs, rejecting contraceptive advice, following
stressful occupations, having dangerous pas-times are also likely to increase the spread of
diseases in a population. Studies that have looked at some of these cultural dimensions reveal
that they point out that cultural practices and beliefs are part of the multifactorial etiology of
diseases.

CULTURE, HEALTH AND ILLNESS 3
Some communities have looked down upon ethnic minority groups, refugees and
immigrants causing their poor health. This can obscure the role of social organization and
culture of the host community- the largest group among whom they reside- in jeopardizing
the health of their minority communities. Racial discrimination has the ability to adversely
interfere with both mental and physical health of minority groups and migrants (Onwuachi
2019).
Chapter 16- Aids pandemic
During the early years of the pandemic, AIDS had powerful negative metaphors (Panadero
& Alqassab 2019). They included the following:
AIDS as a plague (Rushing 2018). It was sometimes referred to as ‘the gay plague.’ This
meant that AIDS has the ability to spread destructive force that comes with chaos and
invisible spreading force breaking family life, ordered society and interpersonal relationships.
AIDS as a war. It was considered to be a war waged on conventional society by
promiscuity, stigmatized immorality ( e.g. prostitutes, gays, drug abusers and immigrants),
immoral lifestyles and foreign influences. Heterosexual victims were at some point depicted
to be collateral damage.
HIV/AIDS was seen as a pre-social or entity or primitive. Here, AIDS had a similar image
as cancer apart from being characterized by unrestrained, unconventional sexuality and
childlike hedonism.
Human beings have also seen AIDS as an invader. This perception has always included
topics from different countries and cultures, themes of strong antipathy or aversion to
strangers or foreigners, because it mostly involves adverse judgment or opinion formed

CULTURE, HEALTH AND ILLNESS 4
beforehand or without knowledge of the facts to the foreigners, those who came into the
country to permanently settle and those who travelled for pleasure especially Haitians,
Africans and others.
Another metaphor about AIDS was its consideration to be a moral punishment. In this
image, those who unfortunately suffered from this adverse disease usually had to be split into
two groups. The groups were categorized as follows: (Those who engaged in extramarital sex
or those who were sexually attracted to persons of either sex, accidental recipients of
transfusions); and those who were responsible for a dishonest act such as men who were
sexually attracted solely or primarily to other members of the same sex, bisexuals, those
involved in indiscriminate choice of sexual partners, a woman who performed sexual activity
for payment and intravenous drug users (Lewis et al 2015). This perception of human
immunodeficiency syndrome is still a common phenomenon in some media houses common
and accepted among the general public.
Despite these metaphors being less commonly used today, in some communities in the
world they will still remain powerful. They have been used politically to for stigmatization of
immigrants, homosexuals, and drug abusers.

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References
Lewis, N. M., Bauer, G. R., Coleman, T. A., Blot, S., Pugh, D., Fraser, M., & Powell, L.
(2015). Community cleavages: Gay and bisexual men’s perceptions of gay and
mainstream community acceptance in the post-AIDS, post-rights era. Journal of
homosexuality, 62(9), 1201-1227.
Onwuachi-Willig, A. (2019). Reconceptualizing the Harms of Discrimination: How Brown v.
Board of Education Helped to Further White Supremacy. Virginia Law Review, 105, 343.
Panadero, E., & Alqassab, M. (2019). An empirical review of anonymity effects in peer
assessment, peer feedback, peer review, peer evaluation and peer grading. Assessment &
Evaluation in Higher Education, 1-26.
Rushing, W. A. (2018). The AIDS epidemic: Social dimensions of an infectious disease.
Routledge.
Semenza, J. C., & Ebi, K. L. (2019). Climate change impact on migration, travel, travel
destinations and the tourism industry: Implications for public health. Journal of Travel
Medicine.
TANWAR, N. S. (2018). Epidemiology, Variability and Management of Anthracnose of
Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] Caused by Colletotrichum graminicola (Ces.)
Wilson (Doctoral dissertation, MPUAT, Udaipur).