Asthma, culture, and cultural analysis: Continuing challenges

Abstract

Recent research indicates that asthma is more complicated than already recognized, requiring a multilateral approach of study in order to better understand its many facets. Apart from being a health problem, asthma is seen as a knowledge problem, and as we argue here, a cultural problem. Employing cultural analysis we outline ways to challenge conventional ideas and practices about asthma by considering how culture shapes asthma experience, diagnosis, management, research, and politics. Finally, we discuss the value of viewing asthma through multiple lenses, and how such "explanatory pluralism" advances transdisciplinary approaches to asthma. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014.