Change and Continuity in the Medical Culture of the Hmong in Kansas City

The Hmong in the United States have undergone radical culture change through their recent experiences of the war in Laos, refugee resettlement, and Christian conversion. This article analyzes the influence of these changes on the health ideas and practices of the Hmong in Kansas City, the primary study population. Although shamanism and ancestor worship have been abandoned, attenuated concepts of spirit illness and soul loss exist in health beliefs and patterns of illness, notably fright illness (ceeb). Their eclectic set of ideas and practices is derived from several systems, including Chinese medicine, Protestant Christianity, and biomedicine. To explain the varied health ideas and practices, Last's concept of medical culture is useful because it provides a framework for understanding medical traditions drawn from differing cultural systems. The Hmong have created a unique medical culture through their incorporation of new therapies as well as the use of some traditional methods of healing.