Contested etiology: cancer risk among two Anatolian populations in Turkey and Europe.

Abstract

This paper discusses the different explanatory models and the contested perceptions of cancer etiology among residents of two Anatolian villages and migrants from these villages in Turkey, Sweden, and Germany. These communities suffer from an endemic, deadly cancer called mesothelioma, the cause of which is associated with exposure to an environmental carcinogenic substance, erionite, which is present in large deposits in the ground, in the stones, and white stucco that the villagers used to build their homes, and in the air in the form of dust. However, an examination of patients' disease trends, experiences, and local explanations has led to new investigations of possible familial risk cofactors. This paper selectively focuses on different aspects of cancer risk and its manifested metaphors, aesthetics, and perceptions. The different categories of cancer risk freely interact, derive an important part of their meaning from the context of the doctor-cancer patient relationship, and are created and navigated by the cancer narrative.

• Authors: Iman Roushdy-Hammady
• Journal: Culture, medicine and psychiatry (Cult Med Psychiatry) Vol. 28 Issue 3 Pg. 315-39 (Sep 2004) ISSN: 0165-005X [Print] Netherlands
• PMID: 15600116 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Review)

Chemical References

• Air Pollutants
• Carcinogens, Environmental
• erionite
• Zeolites

Topics

• Air Pollutants (adverse effects)
• Carcinogens, Environmental (adverse effects)
• Cultural Characteristics
• Emigration and Immigration
• Female
• Germany (epidemiology)
• Humans
• Male
• Mesothelioma (chemically induced, ethnology)
• Narration
• Neoplasms (chemically induced)
• Physician-Patient Relations
• Pleural Neoplasms (chemically induced, ethnology)
• Risk Factors
• Rural Population
• Sweden (epidemiology)
• Time Factors
• Turkey (ethnology)
• Zeolites (adverse effects)