The purpose of this study is to describe cultural understanding and illness management of cancer in Iquitos, Peru. Here, cancer exists amidst infectious and parasitic diseases which take priority in the expenditure of public health care dollars. No epidemiological information on cancer exists for Iquitos and no biomedical treatment for cancer is available locally. Thus, Iquitos offers a view of cancer outside the biomedical paradigm where individuals find their way through cancer experience with medicinal plants and traditional healing. Specific study aims are 1) to identify patterns of local knowledge of cancer within larger cultural understandings of illness, 2) to examine therapeutic options available to individuals with cancer, 3) to describe patterns of illness management, 4) to describe patient-perceived and observed responses to illness management strategies, and 5) to assess physicians perceived abilities to help individuals with cancer. Health transition theory will provide a theoretical framework for the study and an ethnographic approach will be used. Survey data will provide information regarding cultural understandings of illness which will serve as a background for individual cancer narrative analysis. A group of cancer patients will be followed through the duration f the study to assess illness interpretation and illness management strategies over time.
