Premium
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN WESTERN INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES: AN AGENDA FOR MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY
Author(s) -
Anyinam Charles
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
canadian geographer / le géographe canadien
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.35
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1541-0064
pISSN - 0008-3658
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-0064.1990.tb01069.x
Subject(s) - biomedicine , popularity , health care , pluralism (philosophy) , health geography , developed country , variety (cybernetics) , developing country , medical care , health care delivery , medicine , political science , economic growth , health policy , international health , family medicine , environmental health , economics , computer science , population , philosophy , genetics , epistemology , artificial intelligence , law , biology
The range of health and health care topics amenable to geographical analyses in Western industralized countries has increased tremendously in the past two decades. These studies of health care systems have focused on the health organization, delivery, and utilization of biomed‐ical services, however, to the virtual exclusion of analyses of a wide variety of alternative approaches to health and healing in these countries. This lacuna is regrettable in view of the fact that people's health care behaviour suggests that medical pluralism is a persisting reality in the industrialized countries. There is indeed a coexistence of biomedicine with several alternative therapies and, in recent years, there has been resurgence in the popularity and use of alternative medicine.