Understanding Alcohol Use Among U.S. Cambodians: How Useful is the Concept of Cultural Norms?

Abstract

Observed differences in substance use are frequently attributed to cultural norms, which in turn are often interpreted as fixed properties of ethnically defined groups. During a community-based participatory research study (2009–2011), U.S. Cambodian women identified community-specific drinking behaviors and beliefs. To test how widely other U.S. Cambodians shared their views, we formulated them into a series of normative statements and surveyed local community members (N = 172). We identified few consensualized norms, which suggests that (A) norms may not be reducible to normative statements; and/or (B) norms may not be shared by all group members; and (C) if neither A nor B holds, then the attribution of observed drinking patterns to cultural norms lacks internal validity. Study's limitations were noted.

Keywords :

• culture
• norms
• drinking
• alcohol
• immigrant
• Southeast Asian
• Cambodian

THE AUTHORS

Anna Pagano, Ph.D., is a medical anthropologist with an M.A. in Latin American studies. Currently, she is a NIDA Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, CA. Previously, she held an NIAAA postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, California and the Prevention Research Center (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation). Her current research focuses on Latino migrants’ access to treatment for substance use disorders. She has conducted ethnographic research on vulnerable populations’ lived experiences of health disparities in the United States and Brazil.

Juliet P. Lee, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Prevention Research Center of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Berkeley. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and an M.A. in Asian Studies. Her interests in drug, alcohol, and tobacco studies include the social construction of drugs and drug use; critique of methods; and ethnographic approaches to alcohol, tobacco and drug policies. She has served as Principal or Co-Investigator on numerous research projects utilizing mixed methods designs and community-partnered approaches with funding from the National Institutes of Health and the University of California.

Talaya Sin, M.A., is Research Associate at the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) in Oakland, California, where she works primarily on health information technology projects aimed at improving AA&NHOPI (Asian American and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander) health outcomes. Prior to joining AAPCHO, Talaya was Director of Programs and Development at Cambodian Community Development, Incorporated (CCDI) and Research Associate at the Prevention Research Center (PRC) of Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation (PIRE). At PIRE, she evaluated community-based participatory research (CBPR) programs to reduce health inequities among Cambodian Americans and Asian Americans living in the Bay Area.