Is modern Western culture a health hazard?

Abstract

The cultures of societies are underestimated determinants of their population health and well-being. This is as true of modern Western culture, including its defining qualities of materialism and individualism, as it is of other cultures. This paper draws on evidence from a range of disciplines to argue that materialism and individualism are detrimental to health and well-being through their impacts on psychosocial factors such as personal control and social support. The focus of the resurgent scientific and political interest in the effects of the social environment on health has been on socioeconomic inequalities in health—especially those associated with income inequality. Two developments strengthen the case for paying more attention to the role of culture in health. The first is that, at the population level, the role of income inequality has become less clear, with recent research challenging the view that it is a major determinant of population health differences.1–3 Instead it suggests that population health is the product of a complex interaction of history, culture, politics, economics, and the status of women and ethnic groups4; and that we need, in particular, a better appreciation of how broad indicators of social and economic conditions are related to the levels and social distribution of major risk factors for particular health outcomes.3

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