Grassroots interventions for alcohol use disorders in the Mexican immigrant community: A narrative literature review

Traditional Healers as Health Care Providers for the Latine Community in the United States, a Systematic Review

“…Table 1 describes various conditions identified across a spectrum of physical, mental, and spiritual health, for which the Latine community sought THs. THs were sought out to address conditions related to gastrointestinal problems, empacho (pseudointestinal obstruction), abdominal pain, 13 , 45 childhood diarrhea, 10 , 29 diabetes mellitus, 13 , 16 , 22 , 34 , 36 musculoskeletal pain 9 , 14 , 15 , 39 , 41 and injuries, 35 , 37 insomnia, 41 weight loss, 25 substance use, 46 headache, 13 nervios (nerves), 13 Susto (fright), mal aire (bad air), 13 back pain, 13 kidney problems, 13 melachio (melancholy), 13 mal ojo (bad eye), 13 spiritual conditions, 10 , 28 HIV, 38 , 47 cancer, 41 and depression. 16 In farmworkers, the majority (82.5%) sought THs to help with acute conditions (7.5% used them to treat chronic conditions), 24 primarily work-related injuries that they viewed as a consequence of hard physical labor.…”

The Juramento: Secondary and Tertiary Preventive Benefits of a Religious-Based Brief Alcohol Intervention in the Mexican Immigrant Community

“…For the most part, this same campaign has overlooked grassroots interventions for these health problems. The juramento is one of several grassroots interventions for alcohol and substance use in Latinx communities, which include anexos, or 24-hour AA groups, grupos de cuarto y quinto pasos, or fourth and fifth step AA groups, and curanderismo, or traditional medicine [1]. Like the juramento, they are organic, arising from within the community, and they consider cultural traditions and beliefs and language as it is practiced daily.…”

“…Latinx immigrants have introduced these grassroots interventions to the United States not necessarily because they are trying to recreate as much as possible of their homeland culture in new lands, but because there is a need for them in their U.S. communities. Because of their immigrant status in a country whose federal and state governments are increasing limiting services to all immigrants, they have limited government-sponsored health care and nearly no access to formal alcohol and substance use treatments [1,62]. For Latinx immigrants, grassroots interventions such as the juramento are the only source of help for harmful drinking.…”

“…Despite evidence of juramento use among impoverished groups in Mexico, especially in rural communities and regions with strong religious traditions, as well as in Mexican immigrant communities in the United States, it is understudied in both countries. Garcia, Lambert, Fox, Heckert, and Pinchi [1], only found four articles on the juramento in their literature review. It does not include a recent publication by some members of the same team, Garcia, Heckert, Lambert, and Pinchi [6].…”

“…The juramento arose naturally around the religious beliefs of the common people in Mexico, or el pueblo, as they say in Spanish, and as such, is not a formal intervention. It is "intrinsically organic and rooted in culture, which makes it familiar to participants and informs their understanding of the disorder and recovery" [1]. With origins outside of biomedicine, the juramento does not fall within the scope of public health research, and as a result, it does not receive much attention in the alcohol intervention and treatment fields.…”