Comments on the complexities of health interventions for Southeast Asian families, including Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese. American health workers can ignore or be ignorant of the internal turmoil that refugees face in the resettlement process. Health care workers need to be sensitive both to refugees’ underlying anxiety and to their varying cultural beliefs, especially those that come into play in health interventions, such as: (1) the social subtleties embedded in hierarchies of class status, which have a bearing on the selection of an appropriate interpreter to work with a client; (2) the significance of body movement or positions, which may cause inadvertent insult; (3) the belief that health is a balance between hot and cold elements, and the view that Western medicines are all hot; and (4) the belief that diseases are the manifestations of supernatural powers. Refugees may be reluctant to share their health beliefs and practices with Western health providers, for fear of being ridiculed. Because indirect expression of anger at being misunderstood can take the form of noncompliance with health interventions, health workers are well advised to be as respectful as possible of their clients’ cultures in order to minimize offense and build trusting relationships.
