The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down Summary

There are several social determinants that effect the community’s wellbeing and they generally fall within the board categories of policymaking, social factors, healthcare services, and individual lifestyle and behavior. Social determinants play a crucial role in an individual’s heath and the community’s well being. Inequalities in social determinants often are what cause an individual to suffer poor health, which causes the wellbeing of the community to suffer as well. After reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I believe that culture is a major social determinant that affects not just the health of the individual but also the health of the community. The book also adds that we do not have a good grasp on how to examine context as in the case of Lia she was treated by American medical practices but her cultural background was ignored. Lastly, the book provides insight for those individuals pursuing a career in public health because it allows individuals to see the differences between the culture and …show more content…
The most important insight this book depicts is that culture is a major influence on how people view health treatments. For the Hmongs, they viewed many of the Western treatments as being against their culture. For them "most believe that the body contains a finite amount of blood that it is unable to replenish, so repeated blood sampling, especially from small children, may be fatal”(Fadiman 33). The book also illustrates that medicine sometimes is not the only to cure a person. For example, when May broke her arm and was told by the ER doctors that she needed a cast her mother refused and May fully recovered by bathing her arm in herbs and wrapping it in a poultice for a week. For public health professionals to be successful there should be a happy medium between the cultural practices of the individual’s culture and the medical practices of