Sociospatial knowledge networks: Appraising community as place
TL;DR: The geographical approach to understanding health beliefs and knowledge and how people acquire health information presented here is one that could serve other communities and community health practitioners working to improve chronic disease outcomes in diverse local environments.
Abstract: This article introduces a new theory of geographical analysis, sociospatial knowledge networks, for examining and understanding the spatial aspects of health knowledge (i.e., exactly where health beliefs and knowledge coincide with other support in the community). We present an overview of the theory of sociospatial knowledge networks and an example of how it is being used to guide an ongoing ethnographic study of health beliefs, knowledge, and knowledge networks in a rural community of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans at high risk for, but not diagnosed with, type 2 diabetes mellitus. We believe that the geographical approach to understanding health beliefs and knowledge and how people acquire health information presented here is one that could serve other communities and community health practitioners working to improve chronic disease outcomes in diverse local environments.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors report on New Zealand dairy farmers' access to and use of information as mediated through conditions of risk and trust within the context of their interpersonal social networks, following Giddens's typology of trust and risk in pre-modernity and modernity.
138 citations
Cites background or methods from "Sociospatial knowledge networks: Ap..."
...Another important context-setting factor is that unlike in earlier SSKN studies of people seeking particular information just on diabetes (Skelly et al., 2002), farmers’ information needs are extensive, probably because of their roles both as farming practitioners and managers....
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...Agnew (2005) has noted that in the view of some writers, ‘‘place is under threat from a generalized condition of ARTICLE IN PRESS F.X. Sligo, C. Massey / Journal of Rural Studies 23 (2007) 170–182 173 placelessness’’ and ‘‘the local specificity and variety of places have been replaced by relatively…...
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...In essence the SSKN approach combines people’s explanatory cognitive models of how they acquire and use information with a micro-geographical analysis of the networks of social relationships within which they create and maintain their information....
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...The first studies employing SSKNs (Cravey et al., 2001; Skelly et al., 2002) assessed ways in which people found out about community health facilities and thus potentially built their knowledge of good health outcomes....
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TL;DR: The geographies that characterize the new health care are described and, using therapeutics as an example, it is outlined how clinical concepts might provide secure foundations for research and the multiple people, places and relationships that could be investigated.
Abstract: There has been only a partial geographical engagement with the production of conventional health care. Whilst medical geography maps aggregate supply and demand features, the geography of health focuses more on consumption and social and cultural contexts. More specifically, apart from a handful of published studies, both of these fields have overlooked how health care is continually reproduced in places by workers. In response to these shortfalls in the literature, we call for attention to geographies in health care work. In support, we describe the geographies that characterize the new health care and, using therapeutics as an example, outline how clinical concepts might provide secure foundations for research. A final discussion outlines the multiple people, places and relationships that could be investigated. Developing geographies in health care work would provide sensitive insights into the complexity, diversity and daily operation of health care.
99 citations
Cites background from "Sociospatial knowledge networks: Ap..."
..., 2005; Sandelowski, 2002; West and Barron, 2005); and the embeddedness of clinical practice in localized communities (Affonso et al., 2004; Bender et al., 2007; Gesler et al., 2003, Gesler, Hayes et al., 2004; Leipert and Reutter, 1998; Skelly et al., 2002) and natural environments (Grady et al....
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...…and Barron, 2005); and the embeddedness of clinical practice in localized communities (Affonso et al., 2004; Bender et al., 2007; Gesler et al., 2003, Gesler, Hayes et al., 2004; Leipert and Reutter, 1998; Skelly et al., 2002) and natural environments (Grady et al., 1997; Watterson et al., 2005)....
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TL;DR: A culturally specific explanatory model of diabetes mellitus from the perspective of Mexican Americans living along the United States-Mexican border was developed, and Susto (a fright or scare) was perceived to be the primary cause of diabetes, although participants also incorporated biomedical causes.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a culturally specific explanatory model (EM) of diabetes mellitus from the perspective of Mexican Americans living along the United States-Mexican bonier Kleinman's concept of EMs of illness was used as the theoretical orientation, and the grounded theory method was used to sample, collect, and analyze data. The Mexican Americans in this study described their perceptions of type 2 diabetes using the following constructs: causes, symptom, treatment, and social significance. Each of the components of Mexican Americans' EM contained elements of both the folk and the biomedical perspective. Susto (a fright or scare) was perceived to be the primary cause of diabetes, although participants also incorporated biomedical causes. Treatment included the use of both herbal and biomedical modalities. The use of herbal remedies was not well understood by the participants despite the fact that some used herbal therapies to control their diabetes.
94 citations
TL;DR: The psychosocial impact of displacement is discussed using homelessness as an illustrative example of displacement and the role of place in determining identity and self-efficacy is emphasized.
72 citations
TL;DR: Results show almost two-thirds of Latinos in southwest Ohio had low acculturation levels to US culture, and the major source of health information is a medical setting, followed by media technology (which included the Internet).
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the health information sources used by Latinos in southwest Ohio, identify individual Latino residents’ functional health literacy levels, and identify any access barriers to those sources of health information. Results show almost two-thirds had low acculturation levels to US culture. Overall, the major source of health information is a medical setting, followed by media technology (which included the Internet). However, when it comes to being ill, the primary source becomes a media choice, then medical. The barriers to accessing health information included language and lack of confidence/knowledge. Participants reported moderate satisfaction with the sources of health information available, and had an ‘adequate’ health literacy level in Spanish. This study was important because it filled an existing information gap for the Latino community, a racial ethnic minority population in the southwest Ohio area. With the results of this study, health educators and other health care practitioners might be better able to understand the health care needs of the Latino community and could essentially create improved and culturally competent health communications.
71 citations
Cites background from "Sociospatial knowledge networks: Ap..."
...[6] understood the importance of developing methods to assess how people in a community learn about disease, particularly those of different cultures and ethnicities....
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Book•
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: Massey as discussed by the authors rastrea el desarrollo de ideas sobre la estructura social del espacio y el lugar, and the relacion of ambos con cuestiones de genero and ciertos debates dentro del feminismo.
Abstract: En estos dias de aceleracion global por un lado e intensificacion de los nacionalismos locales por otro, ?como deberiamos pensar en el espacio y el lugar? Este nuevo libro reune los escritos clave de Doreen Massey sobre este debate. En el argumenta que hemos visto algunas lecturas problematicas de ambos terminos en los ultimos anos, y propone un enfoque alternativo mas adecuado a los problemas que enfrentan las ciencias sociales en la actualidad. Massey ha organizado estos debates en torno a los tres temas de espacio, lugar y genero. Ella rastrea el desarrollo de ideas sobre la estructura social del espacio y el lugar, y la relacion de ambos con cuestiones de genero y ciertos debates dentro del feminismo. Comenzando con la economia y las estructuras sociales de produccion, Massey desarrolla una nocion mas amplia de espacialidad como producto de la interseccion de las relaciones sociales. Sobre esta base propone un enfoque de los "lugares" esencialmente abierto e hibrido, pero siempre provisional y controvertido. Los temas se entrecruzan con gran parte del pensamiento actual sobre la identidad dentro del feminismo y los estudios culturales. Los capitulos van desde estudios de los conceptos de lugar empleados en debates sobre desarrollo regional desigual y problemas del centro de la ciudad hasta argumentos sobre la relacion entre la conceptualizacion del espacio / lugar y la construccion social de las relaciones de genero.
5,063 citations
TL;DR: This reformed medical geography will analyze issues such as the consequences of illness and health service provision for both personal well-being and the collective experience of place by communities.
Abstract: An engagement with public health concerns and aspects of social theory such as the structure/agency debate is crucial to medical geography. The imperatives underlying this engagement center on place, a geographical concept which is prominent in both social theory and recent health philosophy. Without detracting from its distinguished heritage, this reformed medical geography will analyze issues such as the consequences of illness and health service provision for both personal well-being and the collective experience of place by communities.
479 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the factors which have contributed to Lourdes' attraction for millions as a place of healing: the religious pilgrimage tradition, Lours' central role in political, economic, social, and cultural changes in France; belief in miraculous cures reported at Lourde; and the pilgrim experience.
255 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that advancing a recursive understanding of space and place is an appropriate direction in medical geography, which will include both an understanding of the ways in which space shapes the character of places and how the particularities of places resist or set in motion (orthodox) spatial processes.
195 citations