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The health seeking process: An approach to the natural history of illness

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Abstract

Anthropological research on health-related behaviors in the United States has tended to emphasize folk illnesses among particular subcultural groups, obscuring the heterogeneity of popular culture health beliefs and practices in the lay health system. The development of theoretical models for this complex society will require research that stresses similarity as well as diversity within and between population groups. The health seeking process is proposed in this paper as a means to document natural histories of illness in any subculture. Concepts from medical anthropology and medical sociology are related to five components of health seeking — symptom definition, illness-related shifts in role behavior, lay consultation and referral, treatment actions, and adherence. Illustrative propositions to guide further research are proposed.

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Authors
  1. Noel J. Chrisman
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Additional information

1. This is a substantially revised and expanded version of the paper, ‘Toward a Typology of Health Systems’, given at the American Anthropological Association meetings in San Francisco, December 1975. Various stages in the conceptual development of the health seeking process have been presented in the following forums at the University of Washington: Colloquium in Nursing Research, November 1974; Behavioral Sciences Study Unit Seminar (Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences), February 1976; and the Seminar on Anthropological and Cross-Cultural Dimensions of Illness and Health Care, December 1976. Participants at these gatherings made many useful suggestions. The Office of Nursing Research in the School of Nursing (supported in part by grants NU 00369, DHEW, Division of Nursing, and RR 05758, DHEW, Division of Research Resources) provided bibliographic and typing assistance. Finally, I would like to thank Ursula Chrisman, Byron Good, Jennifer James, Arthur Kleinman, and Steve Shortell for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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Chrisman, N.J. The health seeking process: An approach to the natural history of illness. Cult Med Psych 1, 351–377 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00116243

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