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Traditional Medicine and Global Public Health

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Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health

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Abstract

Traditional medicine plays an important role in therapeutic systems across the globe. Not only do they get taken up in people’s everyday healthcare practices, alongside biomedical practices and folk medicine, but traditional medicines also carry symbolic importance in relation to national and other forms of identity, have an important role in the economies of many countries, and in some instances are a central component in healthcare delivery. Traditional medicine practices have evolved over centuries and continue to be reshaped in relation to commercial demands, technological developments, and interactions with biomedicine, and in turn influence and reshape biomedicine. Traditional medicine is transformed and is transforming as it is taken up in countries beyond its place of origin, and further affordances in access to traditional medicines and training in traditional medicine arises in a connected and digitized world. In circumstances where biomedicine has had limited success, such as in the face of uncertainty caused by on-going chronic conditions at an individual level, or responses to new diseases, such as COVID-19, at a population level, traditional medicines have been turned to. Traditional medicine practices are not static but are dynamic and fluid and responsive to a changing world.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Kevin Dew

  2. University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

    Supuni Liyanagunawardena

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  1. Kevin Dew
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  2. Supuni Liyanagunawardena
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Correspondence to Kevin Dew .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University, Camberwell, VIC, Australia

    Pranee Liamputtong

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Dew, K., Liyanagunawardena, S. (2023). Traditional Medicine and Global Public Health. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96778-9_16-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96778-9_16-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-96778-9

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