Cultural determinants of health in life

Cul­ture is a sys­tem of thoughts and behav­iors saved by a group of peo­ple. Our cul­tur­al back­ground have tremen­dous impact on our life spe­cial­ly on our health. Cul­ture varies from one local group to anoth­er. It and there’s and evolves as well as is val­ued for itself. Anthro­pol­o­gist have focused on both artis­tic as well as behav­ioral dimen­sions. Cul­ture is the man made part of the environment. 

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Cul­ture is a well orga­nized Uni­ty divide into the men­tal aspects a body of arti­facts and sys­tem of cus­toms. Cul­tur­al deter­mi­nants of health incor­po­rate the cul­tur­al aspects that pro­mote to allows a sense of iden­ti­ty and sup­port good men­tal and Phys­i­cal health for indi­vid­u­als fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. These norms, val­ues, beliefs, cus­toms and prac­tices are shaped, sup­port­ed and pro­tect­ed through tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al prac­tice at song dance tra­di­tion­al heal­ing etc. 

United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people consider the following cultural determinant elements as very important to shape has culture of the community

1. Self deter­mi­na­tion
2. Free­dom from discrimination
3. Indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive rights
4. Free­dom from assim­i­la­tion and destruc­tion of culture
5. Pro­tec­tion from relocation
6. Pro­tec­tion and pro­mo­tion of tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge and Indige­nous intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty of right. 

The cul­tur­al beliefs of a com­mu­ni­ty shape the health care prac­tices and devel­op local­ly believed ideas about ill­ness. Any health inter­ven­tion for com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers must be made sen­si­ble in con­text of local beliefs and prac­tices. Under­stand­ing the beliefs and Cus­toms of a com­mu­ni­ty is impor­tant to acknowl­edge and appre­ci­ate the dif­fer­ences between group of peo­ple. For exam­ple how Indi­an women under­stand and han­dle preg­nan­cy and new­born care is entire­ly dif­fer­ent from that of women from West­ern devel­oped coun­tries. Agri­cul­ture has its own cus­tomers which influ­ences the dis­ease pat­tern. It plays impor­tant role in the mat­ters of per­son­al hygiene fam­i­ly plan­ning seek­ing ear­ly med­ical care immu­niza­tion etc in short it has a strong influ­ence in the way of life of peo­ple. Not all cus­toms and beliefs are bad. Some are based on evi­dences like the rest after child­birth where are some are harm­ful like female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion. Cul­tur­al deter­mi­nants of health incor­po­rate the cul­tur­al aspects that pro­mote Re silence allow a sense of iden­ti­ty and sup­port good men­tal and Phys­i­cal health for indi­vid­u­als fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. These norms val­ues beliefs cus­toms and prac­tices are shaped sup­port­ed and pro­tect­ed through tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al prac­tice at song dance tra­di­tion­al heal­ing etc. 

Culture has impact on all the following areas as far as health is concerned with:-

• Con­cept of Eti­ol­o­gy and cure( exam­ple con­sid­er­ing small pox of god­dess Shitala). 
• Envi­ron­ment pro­tec­tion and san­i­ta­tion( belief that let rice are meant for city peo­ple where there are no open fields pro­tect­ing water bod­ies as a part of reli­gious belief ) . 
• Sex­u­al­i­ty and fam­i­ly planning
• Food habits
• Moth­er and child
• Per­son­al hygiene