Using Rituals for Intervention Refinement

Abstract

In this paper we propose a culture-based health promotion/disease prevention intervention model. This model, which is family-based, incorporates a life course perspective, which involves the identification of individual developmental milestones, and incorporates aspects of culture that have been widely used across cultures to influence behavior and mark important developmental transitions. Central among those cultural traits is the ritual, or rite of passage, which, for millennia, has been used to teach the skills associated with developmental task mastery and move individuals, and their families, through life stages so that they reach certain developmental milestones. Family rituals, such as eating dinner together, can serve as powerful leverage points to support health behavior change, and serve as unique intervention delivery strategies that not only influence behavior, but further strengthen families.