Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Perception on health, disease, and health seeking behavior varies from culture to culture. It has been found that even in tribal communities, perception of health, disease, treatment of disease, medical care, and etiology of disease are defined according to their social vis-à-vis cultural construct. Thus to understand the health seeking behavior of tribal people, it is important to identify the process by which tribal people recognize sickness and the ways to counteract it. This research attempts to understand present health conditions and nature of ailments, indigenous views of health and disease, treatment and belief system regarding health, perception about common disease, treatment of disease, process of diagnosis, care giving, and dissatisfaction about care giving from social constructionist point of view. Santal culture has been selected for this purpose because it is neither modern nor very traditional, but positioned somewhere in between. The research has been conducted in the six districts namely, Kolkata, Burdwan, Nadia, Birbhum, Bankura and Paschim Medinipur. Following SRSWR (Stratified Random Sampling without Replacement) technique, a total number of 600 samples (male-282, female-318) have been selected for review. The study reveals that Santal societies have been changing at a certain pace in terms of their health seeking behavior. In spite of modern health care system, they still have strong faith on their indigenous system of diagnosis, treatment, and medicine. It is a reflection of their social construction.