Use of Plant Medicines by Contemporary Native Hawaiians

当代夏威夷人使用植物药物是司空见惯的，即使在城市人口中也是如此，而且夏威夷是美国提供最自由的生物医学保健服务之一。特别是对夏威夷土著来说，保健专业人员表示关切的是，获得这些替代药物延误了寻求生物医学从业人员的注意，从而影响了这种治疗的效果，而且植物药物与药物一起使用或与药物相排斥。从而启动可能与单独药物治疗的结果相反的物理化学作用。本研究的主要目的是从生物行为学的角度研究植物药物的使用，探索“民间”预防和治疗策略的文化建构，并将其与药用植物的药理学评估联系起来。主要关注的是预防和治疗策略如何影响夏威夷原住民的生理健康。隔离关注的植物将满足两个标准，这两个标准增加了它们对健康产生重大影响的可能性：1)广泛使用的植物-最常被人们使用和/或用于更多条件；2)最有可能与药品和其他形式的生物医学护理直接竞争或延迟生物医学治疗的植物。

The use of plant medicines by contemporary people of Hawaii is commonplace, even among urban populations and in a state which offers one of the most liberal access to biomedical health care in the US. Especially for Native Hawaiians, health care professionals express concern that access to these alternative medicines delays seeking attention from practitioners of biomedicines, which compromises the efficacy of such therapy, and that plant medicines are used in conjunction with or to the exclusion of pharmaceuticals, thereby setting into motion physiochemical actions that might be contrary to the outcome of pharmaceutical therapy alone. The primary objective of this research is to investigate the use of plant medicines from a biobehavioral perspective that explores the cultural constructions of "folk" preventive and therapeutic strategies and links that to pharmacologic assessments of medicinal plants. The principal concern is how preventive and therapeutic strategies affect the physiological health of Native Hawaiians. The plants isolated for attention will meet two criteria that increase the likelihood that they have a significant impact on health: 1) plants that enjoy wide currency - used most commonly by people and/or for more conditions; 2) plants most likely to compete directly with pharmaceuticals and other forms of biomedical care or to delay biomedical treatment.