Abstract
How are public health messages interpreted by people in developing countries? Messages that fail to take the lay health culture into consideration are open to misinterpretation, compartmentalization and desensitization to priority issues. My purpose is not to preach the importance of a cultural perspective in health education since the literature is riddled with this sermon. But I would like to present a case to illustrate the point. The example concerns the most basic of health messages, ‘boil drinking water’.
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References
Gaminiratne, K. H. W. 1984 Causes of Death in Sri Lanka: An Analysis of Levels and Trends in the 1970’s. Department of Census and Statistics, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Karunadasa, H. I. 1984 Domestic use of water and sanitation: A behavioral study. National Water Supply and Drainage Board, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1984.
Nichter, M. 1987 Cultural dimensions of hot, cold and sema in the Sri Lankan health culture. In L. Manderson (ed.) Hot-Cold Conceptualization: A Reassessment. Special Edition, Social Science and Medicine 25, 4: 377–387.
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Wellin, E. 1955 Water boiling in a Peruvian town. In B. Paul (ed.), Health, Culture, and Community. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Nichter, M. (1989). Drink Boiled Water: A Cultural Analysis of a Health Education Message. In: Anthropology and International Health. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2231-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2231-0_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-0158-5
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