Asian Culture and Healthcare

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Recommended: Religion in east Asia

Culture is a very important factor to the Asian community. Their whole lives, from their religion, to how they interact with one another, to how they view health care is all dependent on tradition and beliefs. At the third largest majority group, there are almost 12 million Asian or Asian American people living in the United States (Spector, 2009, p 232). Of them, 10.2 million are just Asian, and 1.7 million are Asian mixed with one or more other races. Being Asian refers to having origins to the people from the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. This area uses over 30 different languages and cultures, and has many different religions. One thing that they have in common is their belief in the religion and philosophy, Taoism.

Taoism originated in ancient China from a man named Lao-Tzu. Tao has many meanings, including way, path or discourse. Spiritually, it is the way to ultimate reality, or the way of all nature that regulates heavenly and earthly matters. The Chinese believe that the universe is a vast entity, and everything has a definite function. Nothing can exist without the existence of another because everything is linked together, and is kept in harmonious balance. Health is the state of spiritual and physical harmony with nature. When this balance is violated, the result is illness. To remain healthy, those following Taoism believe that they must conform their actions to the “mobile cycle of the correspondences” (Spector, 2009, p 235). There are two main components to the important idea of traditional Chinese medicine. First is that the human body is regarded as a complete organism that needs to remain in harmony with itself. During sickness, the whole body is regarded, instead of just the affected ...

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...r patients with different cultural beliefs, attitudes and health care practices. Knowing a patient's culture can dramatically improve patient compliance, care and earn patient respect.

Works Cited

Gupta, V. (2010). Impact of culture on healthcare seeking behavior of Asian Indians. Journal Of Cultural Diversity, 17(1), 13-19.

Joswick, D. (2012). What acupuncture can treat. Retrieved from https://www.acufinder.com/ Acupuncture+Information/Detail/What+can+acupuncture+treat+

Spector, R. E. (2009). Cultural diversity in health and illness (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Zhao, M., Esposito, N., & Wang, K. (2010). Cultural beliefs and attitudes toward health and health care among Asian-born women in the United States. JOGNN: Journal Of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing, 39(4), 370-385. doi:10.1111/j.1552-6909.2010.01151.x

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