Beliefs and Practices in Women Health

Rural women’s health is an infinitely broad topic. Many Indian women have come from circumstances in which women have limited access to healthcare.

Man is unique in that he has a distinct cultural environment of his own. This includes all the conditions in which men are born, brought up, live, work, procreate and perish. Culture as an environment is deeply related to the health of humans.

Many rural people did not know about the services set up for them at sub-centres and PHC by the government because they did not see any evidence of these services being provided for them. As a part of the awareness programmes, the health workers (ANM) have been organizing to several exposure trips at the villages.

The cultural phenomenon of social organization, according to Giger and Davidhizar (2004), includes groups in the social environment that influence cultural development and identification.

The family, an important aspect of the social organization phenomenon, strongly influences cultural behavior through a process of socialization or enculturation of children and group members (Giger & Davidhizar; Niska, 1999).

Environmental control is defined by Giger and Davidhizar (2004) as the ability of persons within a particular cultural heritage to plan activities that control their environment as well as their perception of one’s ability to direct factors in the environment.

Kuipers’ (1999) discussion of this model, in relation to Mexican-American culture, emphasized the construct of environmental control with a focus on locus-of-control, health beliefs, and folk medicine. Locus-of-control explains the way in which individuals, within their cultural environment, perceive their ability to control what happens to them and to their health. Health may be viewed as being dependent on outside forces or their own actions (Bundek et al., 1993).