A comparison of traditional food and health strategies among Taiwanese and Chinese immigrants in Atlanta, Georgia, USA

BACKGROUND: Ethnobotanical studies on the use of plants amongst migrant populations are of great relevance to public health. Traditional health strategies, which incorporate plants as medicines, foods, or both – can play an important role in individual well-being. However, at the same time, migrant populations’ traditional knowledge of such practices may be under a state of greater threat of decline due to factors such as limited access to the plant materials and physical isolation from the homeland, which serves as the primary living reservoir for this knowledge. METHODS: In this study, we conducted a medical ethnobotanical survey focusing on a comparison of local medicinal food and health strategies with members of two Asian immigrant populations in metro-Atlanta: Chinese and Taiwanese. Snowball sampling techniques were employed to recruit 83 study participants, 57 of which were included in the final analysis. Semi-structured interview techniques were used to question participants about their beliefs and usage of the yin yang system, usage of Chinese herbs and medicinal foods, preference and usage of Eastern and Western medicines, and gardening for medicinal foods. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Comparison of the two groups demonstrated a remarkable difference in health strategies concerning medicinal plant use, including statistically significant differences in beliefs concerning yin and yang, uses of Eastern versus Western medicine, and gardening for medicinal foods. Domestic health strategies in the form of medicinal foods play an important role in local health practices, especially among the Taiwanese participants. The collective desire for the use of both Eastern and Western medicine by both groups highlights the important role that cultural competency training will play in preparing allopathic health practitioners to serve increasingly diverse patient populations in the US.