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
ISSN: 1757-0980
Article publication date: 30 August 2010
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
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited