Abstract
The “stress of change” is one of the most studied phenomena in the social and health sciences. Variously described as acculturation, urbanization, migration, modernization, or Westernization, rapid sociocultural change has become a daily fact of life for all but the most isolated of the world’s populations. A large and multidisciplinary literature has generally argued that the health consequences of rapid sociocultural change are higher levels of morbidity and mortality along both physical and psychological dimensions. The prevailing view has been that rapid sociocultural change brings about social disorganization and cultural disruption which is in turn responsible for role confusion, cultural identity conflicts and feelings of alienation and anomie. This psychosocial “stress” is then implicated etiologically in the development of a variety of health problems including alcohol abuse, suicide, schizophrenia, hypertension, diabetes and, increasingly, other chronic illnesses including cancer (Dressier 1982; Appell 1980; Antonovsky 1979; Carstairs and Kapur 1976; Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend 1981; Graves and Graves 1979; Marmot and Syme 1976; Reed et al. 1970).
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O’Neil, J.D. (1986). Colonial Stress in the Canadian Arctic: An Ethnography of Young Adults Changing. In: Janes, C.R., Stall, R., Gifford, S.M. (eds) Anthropology and Epidemiology. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3723-9_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3723-9_9
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