![\"Ted](\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-news\/files\/20190417230256\/ted-fischer-433x585.jpg\")
A $600,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation\u00a0 will fund a three-year project with the World Health Organization to develop a new model for health care that incorporates the consideration of cultural attitudes and practices that affect health in the United States. This project extends a WHO effort already underway in Europe, and it will be led by Ted Fischer, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Anthropology and director of the Center of Latin American Studies.<\/p>\n
Fischer is an expert in understandings of well-being across cultures and has consulted with WHO-Europe\u2019s project for the past four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the health field, we spend most of our time talking about medical interventions, of course, but we don\u2019t give much thought to cultural ones,\u201d said Fischer. \u201cBut we all have cultural beliefs and practices that affect our health, and in some cases, these can be a matter of life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur cultural beliefs shape the way we think about health,\u201d said Karabi Acharya, director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. \u201cWe draw from the experiences of countries around the world that bring the relationship between culture and health into sharper focus. Leveraging that global learning, this project will explore culture\u2019s impact on our overall health and well-being in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
A significant challenge to the implementation of effective public health strategies is overcoming what can seem like a puzzling lack of engagement or even resistance to interventions by the affected communities, Fischer said. For example, although Romania has the highest rate of cervical cancer in Europe, efforts to increase screening failed miserably. When WHO social scientists came to investigate, they learned that the women\u2019s health practices imposed during the Ceau\u0219escu regime from the \u201860s to the \u201880s had created a widespread mistrust between women and the medical community that had been passed down from mothers to daughters to the present day. With that new insight, public health officials understood that their first step had to be to rebuild trust with Romanian women so they would feel more comfortable participating in screenings.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe all have cultural beliefs and practices that affect our health, and in some cases, these can be a matter of life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWhat we plan to do here is look for success stories like this from overseas, where cultural considerations have improved health outcomes, and identify ways to apply what we\u2019ve learned from them to problems facing the United States,\u201d Fischer said. \u201cFor example, obesity is a huge concern here. But food isn\u2019t just fuel to people\u2014it\u2019s about love and culture, too. We have to understand what food means to American communities before we can change how people relate to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drawing on on Vanderbilt\u2019s unique strengths in the study of culture and health, Fischer will convene an advisory panel of Vanderbilt social scientists with expertise in health topics. Jonathan Metzl, Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry and director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, will lead the advisory panel.<\/p>\n
Fischer\u2019s team will also consult with an international expert panel of academics, policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders to identify and translate relevant WHO successes to the U.S. context. They will commission new research on key topics as well as developing policy briefs and sharing their findings with health care practitioners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe medical field has been moving toward a model of considering the whole person, not just the disease, for a while now, and this project presents a great opportunity to rethink how we do medicine in ways we might not have considered before,\u201d Fischer said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n