Affiliations: Department of International Health Care Research (IHCAR), Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Note: [] Correspondence to: Prof. Lisbeth Sachs, Department of International Health Care Research, P.O. Box 60400, S-10401, Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract: The question of safety and risk in people's ideas about health and care is approached here from an anthropological perspective. One strength of such an interpretive approach which seems especially important in this context, is that, although the researcher provides an account of the beliefs and actions of other people, the exercise is undertaken with an awareness that the interpretation is itself a product of particular historical and cultural determinants. Cultures, including those of industrial-capitalistic societies like Sweden, form systems of meanings which provide explanations of how the world works, of what is thought of as real and what is designated as natural and inevitable as well as what is morally right. These meanings link people to one another and form the basis for social action. It is thus within this framework that the notion of risk and safety get their content and meaning. In this line of thought a description is provided of what happens when people meet in joint health care encounters where their interests do not coincide, their understanding of what is going' on is not the same, or their expectations of what the other should or should not do differ. How considerations of safety and risk in our health care may be interpreted by people with other health theories and views or other understandings about such things as what life is, what is a person, what is good health, a good life or a normal body, and what death means, are also discussed. An attempt is made to profile the need to define variations in the notions of risk and safety in health care over cultural boundaries with examples from cross-cultural studies.
