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Improving access to traditional Chinese medicine: lessons in pluralism from a UK Chinese National Healthy Living Centre

Maria Tighe (School of Nursing & Midwifery, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, UK)
Cam Tran (Chinese National Healthy Living Centre, London, UK)

Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care

ISSN: 1757-0980

Article publication date: 30 August 2010

223

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a rapidly developing healthcare practice. This exploratory case study of the role of TCM reveals how the use of TCM in a Chinese National Healthy Living Centre (CNHLC) raises the visibility of TCM as a Chinese cultural practice and challenges the relationship between ‘traditional’ medicine use and Chinese health inequalities. In this charitable mono‐ethnic context, TCM performs a plural function: on the one hand, Chinese ethnicities are a social disadvantage, providing rational justification for a culturally specific TCM service. On the other hand, the Chinese provision and use of TCM ‘fills the healthcare gap’, providing counter cultural means of building Chinese health and social capital in the UK healthcare market.

Keywords

Citation

Tighe, M. and Tran, C. (2010), "Improving access to traditional Chinese medicine: lessons in pluralism from a UK Chinese National Healthy Living Centre", Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 38-43. https://doi.org/10.5042/eihsc.2010.0509

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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