NUTRI 310- Module 3

Q: What is a worldview?

A: A cultural group’s shared understanding of life, values, and how the world works.

Q: How does worldview influence health decisions?

A: It shapes beliefs about illness, healing, death, responsibility, and medical choices.

Q: What is the biomedical worldview?

A: A Western system that views disease as having a biological cause and values control over nature, individualism, and scientific treatment.

Q: What is cultural imposition in health care?

A: When providers enforce their own beliefs or practices on patients.

Q: What is the WHO definition of health?

A: A state of complete physical, mental, and social well‑being, not just absence of disease.

Q: How do many cultures define health beyond symptoms?

A: By the ability to fulfill daily responsibilities and maintain harmony with family and community.

Q: What is disease?

A: A physiological abnormality or malfunction of body organs or systems.

Q: What is illness?

A: A person’s subjective experience and perception of feeling unwell.

Q: What is sickness?

A: The social role and cultural meaning assigned to being ill.

Q: What are the four cultural theories of sickness causation?

A: Causes from the patient, natural world, social world, or supernatural world.

Q: What are folk illnesses?

A: Culture‑specific conditions with unique symptoms and meanings, such as susto or empacho.

Q: What is a pluralistic health care system?

A: A system where people use multiple healing traditions (biomedical, traditional, and alternative) either together or sequentially.