Cultural reflexivity in health research and practice

R. Aronowitz, A. Deener, D. Keene, J. Schnittker and L. Tach

American Journal of Public Health, 2015, vol. 105, S403-S408

Abstract: Recent public health movements have invoked cultural change to improve health and reduce health disparities. We argue that these cultural discourses have sometimes justified and maintained health inequalities when those with power and authority designated their own social practices as legitimate and healthy while labeling the practices of marginalized groups as illegitimate or unhealthy. This "misrecognition," which creates seemingly objective knowledge without understanding historical and social conditions, sustains unequal power dynamics and obscures the fact that what is deemed legitimate and healthy can be temporally, geographically, and socially relative. We use examples from research across multiple disciplines to illustrate the potential consequences of cultural misrecognition, highlight instances in which culture was invoked in ways that overcame misrecognition, and discuss how cultural reflexivity can be used to improve health research and practice.

Keywords: ancestry group; cultural anthropology; ethnic group; health care disparity; health disparity; health services research; human; public health service; United States, Continental Population Groups; Culture; Ethnic Groups; Health Services Research; Health Status Disparities; Healthcare Disparities; Humans; Public Health Practice; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302551

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.302551_4

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302551

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().