Myths and Health promotion

For the years I have lived, I have met myths and beliefs in whatever I have done. In addition, I grew up in a culture where myths and beliefs protected all who professed them. Today, I am pursuing a career in public health and while I am doing those hefty searches in the Library I come across this book titled "Ageless body, timeless mind" by Deepak Chopra. In this book, Chopra challenges the concept of disease causality in a manner my grandfather would have twenty years ago. Particularly, he questions the reasons why we must focus on relative risk and odds ratios without accounting for the absence of disease/outcome factor in those who do not get it.

While this man’s ideas are throwing be back in history, I also remember that I am doing this course called health promotion. The questions that came to my mind, which I would like to share with all you health promotion activists are: Where does health promotion fit in this ideology and what are the challenges health promotion is likely to face in future when these ideas prevail over science/evidence based practice? According to me this is very important especially when we are trying to address the health of indigenous communities with their rich, old and deep-rooted myths and beliefs.

William B. Mbabazi