Introduction
Despite the unified importance of such a notion as health all over the world, there are differences in the perception of it depending on the cultural context. Particularly, the approaches to medicine and the overall attitudes toward illness differ when comparing Eastern and Western medical practices. This paragraph is aimed to elaborate on the concepts of health and illness in the Chinese context.
Discussion
To begin with, the foundation of the Chinese perception of life and health is the idea of Qi – the vital force of life (Vang and Tang, 2010). A healthy person keeps such balance in their body, whereas an individual with a disease fails to maintain it. The illness in this case is believed to be caused by the opposite of the aforementioned forces. Particularly, such forces that make up the Qi are called yin and yang. To conclude, Chinese medicine and overall philosophy include fascinating concepts that illustrate the fragility of human life.
As far as the leading causes of death of Chinese-American citizens are concerned, several trends have been reoccurring for decades when compared to China. Tsang et al. (2020) show that while the main cause of death in China is considered to be cardiovascular diseases, accounting for 43% of all cases, the combination of various forms of cancer exceeded that value in the U.S.A. In particular, lung, colorectal, stomach, and pancreas cancer are all dominant causes of death for both male and female Chinese Americans, with liver and breast cancer being in the second place for men and women respectively (Tsang et al., 2020).
Conclusion
In conclusion, all five of the top ten main causes of death of Chinese Americans can be attributed to different forms of cancer varying depending on the gender of the person.
References
Tsang, H., Sales, C., Lin, B. and Palaniappan, L. (2020). Chinese and Chinese-American Health Statistics, 1950-2020. CARE Data Brief, 3.
Wang, J. and Tang. Y. L. (2010). On the concept of health in traditional Chinese medicine and its characteristics and advantages. Chinese Journal of Medical History, 40(1).