Question

What is cultural health capital? Which populations are least likely to have cultural health capital? How does low cultural health capital affect doctor-patient relationships?

Answer 1

Cultural health capital is defined as a specialized collection of cultural skills, attitudes,behaviours and interactional styles that are valued, leveraged and exchanged by both patients and providers during clinical interaction.

Populations who are illiterate or uneducated,financially weak or poor are least likely to have cultural health capital.

Another aspect of cultural capital is the knowledge and behaviour that gain an individual advantage in a particular social environment. It is the capacity to be and remain informed. Therefore, it disproportionately benefits those are better educated, more financially secure and able to capitalise on public health prevention methods. Patients' differential ability to deploy certain strategies to improve physician's perception and/or negate negative stereotypes in an attempt to reduce the perceived social distance between them and help improve the care recieved. This is absent in low cultural capital patients and hence explains the disparity in health care between populations.