Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness

About Rachael SpectorRachel Spector

Dr. Rachel E. Spector has been a student of culturally diverse health and illness beliefs and practices for over 40 years and has researched and taught courses on culture and healthcare for the same time span. Dr. Spector has had the opportunity to work in many different communities including the American Indian and Hispanic communities in Boston Massachusetts. Her studies have taken her to many places: most of the United States Canada and Mexico; several European countries including Denmark England Greece Finland Iceland Italy France Russia Spain and Switzerland; Cuba; Israel; Pakistan; and Australia and New Zealand. She was fortunate enough to collect traditional amulets and remedies from many of these diverse communities visit shrines and meet practitioners of traditional healthcare in several places. She was instrumental in the creation and presentation of the exhibit Immigrant Health Traditions at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum May 1994 through January 1995. She has exhibited health-related objects in several other settings. Recently she served as a Colaboradora Honorifica (Honorary Collaborator) in the University of Alicante in Alicante Spain and Tamaulipas Mexico. In 2006 she was a Lady Davis Fellow in the Henrietta Zold-Hadassah Hebrew University School of Nursing in Jerusalem Israel. This text was translated into Spanish by Maria Munoz and published in Madrid by Prentice Hall as Las Culturas de la SALUD in 2003 and into Chinese in 2010. There have been two International Editions of the book. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and a Scholar in the Transcultural Nursing Society. The American Nurses AssociationMassachusetts the state organization of the American Nurses Association honored her as a Living Legend in 2007. In 2008 she received the Honorary Human Rights Award from the American Nurses Association. This award recognized her contributions and accomplishments that have been of national significance to human rights and have influenced healthcare and nursing practice.