An Introduction to Diverse Needs
While a chiropractic student, I traveled with a group of medical providers to a community in Ghana to provide supplies, assist with health screens in remote villages, and work in a local hospital within a variety of departments. During my time there, I interviewed different community members employed by the hospital or by non-governmental organizations working with the hospital about their perceived health burdens and openness to chiropractic. Unexpectedly, interviewees expressed that while they practiced a Western medicine model, there was some uncertainty on how much that body of knowledge applied to them since they felt so underrepresented in the studies that contributed to that knowledge. The patients and study participants described were rarely people that came from similar geography, cultures, and lifestyles or had physical characteristics they identified with.