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Migration and Hypertension: An Ethnography of Disease Risk in an Urban Samoan Community

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Anthropology and Epidemiology

Part of the book series: Culture, Illness, and Healing ((CIHE,volume 9))

Abstract

Migration is one of the major demographic processes affecting world populations today. However, knowledge of how social and cultural discontinuity affect health remains poorly developed. One reason for this lack of understanding has been the persistence of artificial disciplinary boundaries between the behavioral and health sciences. Social scientists have for some time been interested in the adaptation of migrant groups to complex urban settings, yet have not until very recently extended research to consider the physiological consequences of such adaptation for individual migrants. Similarly, health scientists — particularly epidemiologists — have treated the social and cultural dimensions of migration in a superficial manner when studying health among migrating populations. The major problem in bridging these disciplinary perspectives lies in creating operational definitions of such explanatory concepts as “Westernization”, “acculturation”, and “stress” that adequately encompass the full complexities of adaptation to new environments. Thus, there is a need for developing an approach to understanding the health consequences of migration that integrates social scientific and epidemiologic perspectives.

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Authors
  1. Craig R. Janes
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado, USA

    Craig R. Janes

  2. Department of Urban Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    Ron Stall

  3. The Alcohol Research Group, Berkeley, California, USA

    Ron Stall

  4. Division of Community Health, State Health Commission of Victoria, Australia

    Sandra M. Gifford

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© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company

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Janes, C.R. (1986). Migration and Hypertension: An Ethnography of Disease Risk in an Urban Samoan Community. In: Janes, C.R., Stall, R., Gifford, S.M. (eds) Anthropology and Epidemiology. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3723-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3723-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-277-2249-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-3723-9

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