The Culture Factor in Health Care Challenges of Cultural Diversity in Health care: Protect Your Patients and Yourself

Today, globally, every 2 minutes, a child dies of malaria. And each year, more than 200 million new cases of the disease are reported. Every year Measles is killing more than 2 million people. The disease remains one of the leading causes of death among young children under the age of five in many developing countries. As of end-January 2019, there have been over 700 cases of Ebola in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) alone, of which about two-thirds are women.Worldwide, ending Polio still remains a problem at large. For all these diseases and many other health issues alike, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine/ treatment, cultural values, traditional beliefs and religious perspectives are causing major challenges confronting them. In developing countries, public opinions about healthcare include varied and deep-seated beliefs, a result of the tension between divergent cultural viewpoints and value systems. Several key cultural perspectives stem from (1) individual rights and public health stances toward vaccination, (2) various religious standpoints and objections such as attitude towards suffering and etiology of illness, etc and (3) unfamiliarity, suspicion and mistrust of western medical methods and medicine, are some of the challenges faced by medical professionals. In many developed countries, over the past couple of decades, the demographics have changed considerably.