Cultural perceptions and categorization of male sexual health problems by practitioners and men in a Mumbai slum population

This paper presents data comparing practitioners and community males cultural perceptions and categorizing of sexual health problems in a Mumbai slum population. Structured qualitative data from Free listing pile sorting and ratings are frequently used to obtain a systematic picture of the vocabulary of terminology ways of classifying and other intonation in a specific topical domain such as "illnesses"; "types of healers/practitioners"; "foods" and so on. Until recently the entire area of reproductive health was very poorly understood particularly with reference to South Asian populations. However during the 1990s a number of studies of womens gynaecological health issues have been reported from several areas of India and Bangladesh. Several of these studies have used structured qualitative methods; in order to get culturally specific emic data and other information about womens perceived health problems and treatment seeking behaviours. On the other hand male sexual reproductive health including their vocabularies and perceptions of sexually transmitted problems have been much less studied. (excerpt)