An ethnomedical analysis of hypertension among Detroit Afro-Americans

Abstract

To analyze Afro-American ethnomedical beliefs and practices concerning disease and health care, the author investigated the health-care-seeking behavior among 285 Afro-Americans and 178 Euro-Americans in the Detroit metropolitan area with respect to hypertension. Hypertension was chosen because more than 60 million individuals in the United States have elevated blood pressure (140/90 mmHg or greater).QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DATA REVEALED FIVE THEMES ASSOCIATED WITH HYPERTENSION: (1) degree of activity and responsibility, (2) individual and familial moral strength, (3) naturalistic causation, (4) family, folk, or personal care, and (5) physical and spiritual balance. In addition to these ethnohealth and ethnocaring modes, the decisive sociocultural factors in the utilization of the health screening were (1) the health beliefs of the extended lay network, (2) the type of health facility, (3) the lifestyle and behavioral patterns of Detroiters from 1910 to the present, and (4) the adherence to traditional Afro-American cultural beliefs. Once health care professionals recognize the multitude of factors that affect health-care-seeking behavior among Afro-Americans, many health care issues can be resolved.