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Tracing Home‐Based Health Care Change in an Andean Indian Community
Author(s) -
Finerman Ruthbeth
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
medical anthropology quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.855
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1548-1387
pISSN - 0745-5194
DOI - 10.1525/maq.1989.3.2.02a00040
Subject(s) - biomedicine , health care , qualitative research , contact tracing , medicine , geography , nursing , ethnology , gerontology , family medicine , sociology , economic growth , social science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , genetics , economics , biology , disease , covid-19 , pathology
Qualitative and quantitative data collected over a period of 11 years indicate that Saraguro Indians in the southern Ecuadorian highlands rely almost exclusively on mothers as family healers despite access to a range of specialized traditional and biomedical services. However, the home‐based health care system has begun to change in recent years as mothers increasingly integrate selected features of biomedicine into family curing. I suggest that the tenacity of home‐based therapy is a product of its receptivity to innovations that complement core health care values.