In today’s world, society depends a lot on medicine and science in the attempt to cure diseases or illness. However, this process of healing takes more than just understanding the biological factors of certain diseases/ illness. To better understand the processes in which illness and healing occurs it is important to look at a broader picture such as culture, social nature and emerging contagious diseases. As these factors have had an impact on the ability to cure or even prevent diseases.

Culture plays a big role on how individuals perceive the world, as it shape how individual of different societies think and behave. It had also taught individuals on how to experience certain life events such as illness, although the expectation on how …show more content…
However, when the individuals don’t share the same culture, they frequently experience difficulties in understanding each other. This culture difference has its influence in the processes of illness and healing. For instance a study observing the effect of culture on illness behavior between American and Asian cultures, demonstrated that the involvement of the family is very important (Nilchaikovit 1993, p.41). A Korean patient who was being treated for leukemia was referred to a psychiatric due to depression. After the initial consultation with two different doctors one from America and one from Asia, they both had a very different perspective of the situation. The American doctor concluded that the patient was suffering from lack of space due to overly family involvement, and that intervention should be made. However, the Asian doctor did not agree with the previous statement and suggested that the patient would still like the family involvement (Nilchaikovit 1993, p.41). It is important to consider the differences between Asian and American families. In the Asian culture their perception of self is family …show more content…
76). Sociocultural disease/ illnesses are caused by the same factors of environmental bacterial, toxins, carcinogens and viral pathogens (Hahn 1995, p. 76). The effect of sociocultural does not exclude the biological facts, instead it compliment to the understanding of biological form of causation in illness and healing. Since biomedicine it self consider sickness and healing merely biological events, and that sociocultural effects plays a secondary role (Hahn 1995, p. 77). However, sociocultural has shown to play a bigger role in sickness and healing. There are three factors that contribute to individual’s wellbeing status such as “construction”, “mediation” and “production”. The culture in which an individual is born constructs the way he/she thinks and fells about sickness and illness (Hahn 1995, p. 77). Individuals are thought by the society about certain types of diseases, their names, moral significance, symptoms, causes and appropriate responses (Hahn 1995, p. 77). What is considerate to be a sickness might differ from society to society. For instance how menopause is seen as a medical condition that needs treatment, while in others society menopause is seen as a normal condition. Often women don’t have many symptoms compared to those who society thought about