Northern Baja California Indian women's concepts of illness and healing: Implications for public health and clinical practitioners

Abstract

Lay health care workers (promotores) interviewed 313 female members of remote Indian groups in northern Baja California, Mexico regarding: (1) common childhood and adult illnesses and endorsement of ‘traditional’ and modern therapies; (2) illness causation beliefs and knowledge of biomedical principles; and (3) the relation of ethnic identity with concepts of effective biomedical and non-biomedical therapy. The most common illnesses/symptoms reported in adults were diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cold/flu, diarrhoea, low/variable blood pressure and arthritis; and in children, cold/flu, diarrhoea, bronchitis, cough, fever, empacho and dehydration. Of 285 informants, more reported at least one childhood disorder than who reported at least one adult disorder was most helped by traditional therapy [83 (29.1%) versus 44 (15.4%); P<0.0001] and both therapies [81 (28.4%) versus 42 (14.7%); P<0.001]. They reported eight naturalistic and two personalistic illness causes and manifested variable biomedical knowledge. Indian or mixed Indian/Mexican ethnic self-identity predominated, and Indian identity was unrelated to endorsement of traditional therapy. The ‘biocultural synthesis’ is a useful theoretical framework for viewing the findings. The Indians' pluralistic concepts have important implications for public health care workers and biomedical practitioners.

Keywords:

• American Indian
• Mexico
• traditional medicine
• health concepts
• folk illness

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Lynn H. Gamble for advice, Dr Javier Ceseña and other CUNA staff for administrative assistance, the village promotores for conducting the survey, and Janis F. Yao, M.S. for statistical analysis.