title: Deconstructing fatalism: ethnographic perspectives on women's decision making about cancer prevention and treatment.
abstract: Researchers have long held that fatalism (the belief in a lack of personal power or control over destiny or fate) constitutes a major barrier to participation in positive health behaviors and, subsequently, adversely affects health outcomes. In this article, we present two in-depth, ethnographic studies of rural women's health decisions surrounding cancer treatments to illustrate the complexity and contestability of the long-established fatalism construct. Narrative analyses suggest that for these women, numerous and complex factors--including inadequate access to health services, a legacy of self-reliance, insufficient privacy, combined with a culturally acceptable idiom of fatalism--foster the use of, but not necessarily a rigid conviction in, the notion of fatalism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family and Community Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, USA.
authors.forename: Elaine M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Drew
authors.forename: Nancy E
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Schoenberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001061:Appalachian Region; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007044:Hysterectomy / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D014481:United States; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000523:psychology