5 results
Search Results
2. An ethnographic study of salt use and humoral concepts in a Latino farm worker community in California's Central Valley.
- Author
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Barker, Judith C., Guerra, Claudia, Gonzalez-Vargas, M. Judy, and Hoeft, Kristin S.
- Subjects
PREVENTIVE medicine ,HALOTHERAPY ,PREVENTION of psychological stress ,EDUCATIONAL attainment ,AGRICULTURAL laborers ,HISPANIC Americans ,ALTERNATIVE medicine ,FOCUS groups ,HEALTH attitudes ,HEAT ,IMMIGRANTS ,INTERVIEWING ,POVERTY ,RESEARCH funding ,RURAL conditions ,SALT ,STATISTICAL sampling ,TASTE ,TRADITIONAL medicine ,WATER-electrolyte balance (Physiology) ,FUNCTIONAL foods ,QUALITATIVE research ,ENVIRONMENTAL exposure ,SOCIAL constructionism ,THEMATIC analysis ,DATA analysis software ,DESCRIPTIVE statistics - Abstract
Background: This article reports on the use of domestic or table salt for its perceived health effects and healing properties in a Latino farmworker community. It explores how contemporary salt usage beliefs can be seen to have roots in long-standing humoral theories of medicine and health. Methods: This qualitative investigation comprised 30 in-depth individual interviews and five focus groups conducted in Spanish with Mexican and Central American immigrants in one small city in California's Central Valley (N = 61 total participants). Interviews and focus groups were audiotaped, translated into English and transcribed. Several researchers independently and iteratively read transcripts, developed and applied codes, and engaged in thematic analysis. Results: Strongly emergent themes identified the importance of balance in health, and beliefs about the effects on salt on health. Valued for its culinary role, for bringing out the flavors in food, and used by people of all ages, salt use is part of a robust set of cultural practices. Salt was regularly mixed with foods in different combinations and ingested to restore balance, prevent disequilibrium or reduce vulnerability to diverse illnesses, promote rehydration, and address symptoms of exposure to extremes of temperature or physical or emotional stress. Statements made and practices engaged in by participants were highly suggestive of health and healing beliefs common to humoral belief systems based primarily on a hot-cold dichotomy in classifications of foods and healing behaviors. We evaluate these statements and practices in the context of the existing literature on historical and contemporary humoral beliefs in Latin American communities, in Mexico and Central America, and in the United States. Conclusion: Humoral theory is a useful framework for understanding contemporary rural Latino migrant farmworkers' perceptions of the importance of salt for their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Geffen Faculty Highlight Concerns Linking CAIM and Conventional Researchers at UCLA Symposium.
- Author
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Logue, Elizabeth H.
- Subjects
UNIVERSITY faculty ,COLLEGE teachers ,ALTERNATIVE medicine - Abstract
David Geffen School of Medicine faculty, representing a wide range of disciplines, engaged speakers nationally known for their expertise on complementary, alternative and integrative medicine (CAIM) and its investigation at a January, 2008 symposium on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. The forum was created to educate the UCLA Institutional Review Board (IRB), and lively participation by School of Medicine faculty helped bring IRB members up to speed on controversies surrounding CAIM research. The symposium demonstrated that academics who are neither proponents nor detractors of CAIM can facilitate cross talk between opposing camps, elucidating questions important to its evaluation by those charged with protecting research subjects. It also brought attention to the universality of quandaries facing CAIM investigators and to the ingenuity with which they have addressed many of them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. California dreamin'
- Author
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La Franco, Robert and Munk, Nina
- Subjects
ALTERNATIVE medicine ,MANNERS & customs - Abstract
Relates the author's experiences living in California. His experience with chiropractic medicine, seaweed wraps, acupuncture, and a food-combining diet; Number of chiropractors and acupuncturists in California; The results of his experiences.
- Published
- 1996
5. SPOTLIGHT: Center for Health & Wellbeing.
- Author
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Kovach, Lisa
- Subjects
HEALTH facilities ,MEDICINE ,ALTERNATIVE medicine - Abstract
The article presents a profile on the San Diego, California-based Center for Health and Wellbeing, and its medical director, Janette Gray. The center is an integrative medical practice that blends the best of traditional Western medicine with the healing practices of many alternative and complementary therapies. The goal is to provide patients with compassionate, patient centered integrative medicine that is convenient, physician guided and reasonably priced. Its medical director Gray practiced as a doctor for 11 years at various locations. She established the center through personal loans, lines of credit and family loans.
- Published
- 2005
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