SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN HEALTH IN ASIA AND AFRICA

Abstract

This research article intends to analyze the role of social and cultural beliefs in the life of people and evaluate the effects of such beliefs on the health of people in society. Social and cultural beliefs are prevailing in the societies since a long time and have played a crucial role in establishing some practices which are followed by a larger portion of the population. Asian and African societies are largely affected by these beliefs and this effect is very visible in the health. There are very strong roots of these beliefs in these societies. As for as the health perspective of human life is concerned each culture contains certain beliefs about health. Every society has developed some sorts of typical beliefs for the diseases and their treatment. In order to analyze this effect of social and cultural beliefs on the health of people in a society we have searched for different social and cultural practices among the populations and tried to explore the link between these practices and established social and cultural beliefs in the society. The research was made on the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship of social and cultural beliefs with the attitude and behavior of the people towards the health in the society. This paper has identified different beliefs & practices existing in the Asian and African societies and examined their role on the women and children health. Some practices are playing a major role in developing poor health indicators like high infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the study population. Research shows that indicators of women and children health in Asian and African countries are very worst in comparison with other developed countries of the world. This paper recommend for preparing different awareness programs for community in the context of social and cultural behavior of people towards health and urge policy makers and public health professional to make appropriate legislation to stop harmful practices and take effective measures for the improvement of women and children health.