Conceptions of health: A cross-cultural comparison.

The Relationship Between Culture, Health Conceptions, and Health Practices

“…An inductive approach was used during the analysis, which means that the researcher let the themes emerge from the data instead of using theoretical codes identified a priori. A detailed description of the health definition and health practice dimensions is reported in Levesque (2011). The identified health definition dimensions included: (a) negative health , defined as the absence of illness, disability, and pain (e.g., “You know when you’re healthy when you don’t have indicators of un-healthiness, so that would be symptoms of disease, pain, wheezing.”); (b) functionality , described as one’s ability to function in one’s daily life (e.g., “Because he can do all of his regular life things, I would consider him healthy even though he’s in a wheelchair.”); (c) wellbeing , meaning that being healthy involves a general sense of wellness (e.g., “Wellness is beyond not being ill. It’s one step beyond where you actually have an exuberance of health.”); (d) developmental health , which reflects a view of health as a continuous process toward better health as opposed to a static, achievable end state (e.g., “I don’t think there’s an end-goal in being healthy .…”

“…An inductive approach was used during the analysis, which means that the researcher let the themes emerge from the data instead of using theoretical codes identified a priori. A detailed description of the health definition and health practice dimensions is reported in Levesque (2011). The identified health definition dimensions included: (a) negative health, defined as the absence of illness, disability, and pain (e.g., "You know when you're healthy when you don't have indicators of un-healthiness, so that would be symptoms of disease, pain, wheezing.…”