ABSTRACT
One of the groups of practitioners who have become frustrated in their attempts to help are medical workers, particularly in public health. They have encountered two kinds of difficulties in which the collaboration of anthropologists can be important: first, understanding the causes of certain diseases; and second, persuading people to do what they-the medical peoplethink will prevent or ameliorate disease. Let us look at the latter question first. Anthropologists and other social scientists, it was hoped, could provide some of the answers as to why people are reluctant to take pills brought by doctors to rid them of worms, why they are slow to build latrines and prefer using the fields for defecation, and-to quote an example about supposedly advanced people living in cities in the United States -why they will not vote in favor of adding fluorides to their water supply in order to cut down on tooth decay. We do not have ready answers for the hygiene workers about how they can change people in a short time to be more cooperative, but we have made progress in identifying some of the relevant variables (Foster 1962; Polgar 1962a). Sometimes it is even important to point out to our medical colleagues that not all of their recommendations have a strict scientific basis, but may well include some preferences based on their own way of life. Thus, in order to understand the factors influencing the success of a public health program, the social scientist has to study not only the culture of the people receiving attention, but also the culture of the professional workers who would provide the help. These kinds of studies make up a large part of applied social science in health, but I will not deal with them any further on this occasion.
