The effects of pain management on pain concepts and experiences

在不同的环境中，获得止痛药的机会差别很大。这如何影响疼痛的概念，以及治疗不同类型和体验的疼痛的方式，仍然知之甚少。本研究使用文化人类学的理论来研究疼痛护理中的文化差异如何影响患者如何理解和体验疼痛，反过来，疼痛概念化的差异如何影响社会关系。该项目为一名博士后研究员、一名研究生和来自代表性不足群体的本科生提供培训。结果将广泛传播给学术和非学术受众，包括卫生保健工作者和其他利益攸关方。该项目的目标是研究疼痛和护理实践，以了解不同生物医学和文化背景如何塑造疼痛的实践和意义。该项目利用人种学、在卫生设施和社区环境中的访谈以及文件和档案分析来实现三个互补的目标：调查生物医学与社区驱动的护理实践的差异；了解护理实践的差异如何影响和受社会关系的影响；并理解不同的文化背景如何与第二和第三相交叉从而形成对痛苦的体验和理解。这项研究将有助于发展和检验一些理论，这些理论解释了个人属性与社会、文化和政治结构在塑造身心联系中的意义和经验方面的复杂交集。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Access to pain medication varies considerably in different settings. How this affects concepts of pain and the way different types and experiences of pain are treated remains poorly understood. This research uses theory from cultural anthropology to investigate how cultural variation in pain care affects how sufferers understand and experience pain and, in turn, how variation in conceptualizations of pain affect social relationships. The project provides training for a postdoctoral researcher, a graduate student, and undergraduate students from underrepresented groups. Results will be disseminated broadly to academic and non-academic audiences, including healthcare workers and other stakeholders. The goal of this project is to investigate pain and care practices to understand how practices and meanings of pain are shaped by varying biomedical and cultural contexts. The project uses ethnography, interviews in health facilities and community settings, and document and archival analysis to pursue three complementary objectives: to investigate differences in biomedical versus community-driven care practices; to understand how differences in care practices affect and are affected by social relationships; and to understand how different cultural contexts intersect with 2 and 3 to shape experiences and understandings of pain. This research will help to develop and test theories that account for the complex intersections of individual attributes and social, cultural, and political structures in shaping meaning and experience in the mind-body connection.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.