title: Intercultural health: proposals, actions and failures.
abstract: During the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s,various intercultural health proposals and actions emerged in most Latin American countries. These initiatives aimed to integrate biomedicine with traditional medicine based on 'parallel' relationships, as opposed relationships based on exclusion, subordination and hegemony. These initiatives had two basic objectives:1) to contribute to the cultural rehabilitation of ethnic groups that made effective use of traditional medicine; and 2) to improve the quality of relationships between health professionals and indigenous patients. This paper analyzes the reasons for the limited impact and, in some cases, failure of such intercultural health initiatives.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, México, DF, México, emenendez1@yahoo.com.mx.
authors.forename: Eduardo Luiz
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Menéndez
mesh_terms: D006282:Health Personnel; D006303:Health Services, Indigenous; D006801:Humans; D007843:Latin America; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations