The purpose of this paper is to apply your understanding of these central themes. Your task is to read the select chapters (3 and 6) from Anne Fadiman’s (1997) book,
The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors,and the collision of two cultures. The selected chapters provide a brief overview of the Fadiman’s exploration of the Hmong community’s health care experiences in the Merced Community Medical Center (MCMM) in Central Valley, CA, during the early 1980s.
Although the book details the experiences of baby girl Lia Lee, whose family along with hundreds of other refugee families arrived in central CA after fleeing war-torn Laos, the author describes the conflicts between the Hmong community and their American health care providers in the American health care system.
Carefully read the select chapters and answer the following, using evidence from the texts to support your ideas.
1. How do differing cultural conceptions of health and illness shape the health care interactions between the Hmong community and the American health care providers?
2. How do the health care experiences described in these chapters illustrate the importance of source, message, and channel factors in health communication interactions at MCMM?
3. How might social stigma influence the Hmong community’s health care
experiences and what are the possible consequences of such stigma?
4. What might help to improve the health care interactions between the Hmong community and American healthcare providers?
