TY - JOUR
T1 - Culture
T2 - The missing link in health research
AU - Kagawa Singer, M.
AU - Dressler, W.
AU - George, S.
AU - Baquet, Claudia R.
AU - Bell, Ronny A.
AU - Burhansstipanov, Linda
AU - Burke, Nancy J.
AU - Dibble, Suzanne
AU - Elwood, William
AU - Garro, Linda
AU - Gravlee, Clarence C.
AU - Guarnaccia, Peter
AU - Hecht, Michael L.
AU - Henderson, Jeffrey
AU - Hruschka, Dan
AU - Lewis-Fernández, Roberto
AU - Like, Robert
AU - Mouton, Charles
AU - Myers, Hector F.
AU - Page, J. Bryan
AU - Pasick, Rena
AU - Pescosolido, Bernice
AU - Schoenberg, Nancy
AU - Stoner, Bradley
AU - Strayhorn, Gregory
AU - Szalacha, Laura
AU - Trimble, Joseph
AU - Weisner, Thomas S.
AU - Williams, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - Culture is essential for humans to exist. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to identifying how culture works or developing standards to guide the application of this concept in health research. This paper describes a multidisciplinary effort to find consensus on essential elements of a definition of culture to guide researchers in studying how cultural processes influence health and health behaviors. We first highlight the lack of progress made in the health sciences to explain differences between population groups, and then identify 10 key barriers in research impeding progress in more effectively and rapidly realizing equity in health outcomes. Second, we highlight the primarily mono-cultural lens through which health behavior is currently conceptualized, third, we present a consensus definition of culture as an integrating framework, and last, we provide guidelines to more effectively operationalize the concept of culture for health research. We hope this effort will be useful to researchers, reviewers, and funders alike.
AB - Culture is essential for humans to exist. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to identifying how culture works or developing standards to guide the application of this concept in health research. This paper describes a multidisciplinary effort to find consensus on essential elements of a definition of culture to guide researchers in studying how cultural processes influence health and health behaviors. We first highlight the lack of progress made in the health sciences to explain differences between population groups, and then identify 10 key barriers in research impeding progress in more effectively and rapidly realizing equity in health outcomes. Second, we highlight the primarily mono-cultural lens through which health behavior is currently conceptualized, third, we present a consensus definition of culture as an integrating framework, and last, we provide guidelines to more effectively operationalize the concept of culture for health research. We hope this effort will be useful to researchers, reviewers, and funders alike.
KW - Cross-cultural health
KW - Culture
KW - Culture and health
KW - Culture defined
KW - Culture of science
KW - Culture, race, and ethnicity
KW - Health disparities
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.015
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.015
M3 - Article
C2 - 27542574
AN - SCOPUS:84994674020
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 170
SP - 237
EP - 246
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
ER -