Author's response: Culture can be studied at both large and small scales

The cultures of scientific disciplines are like the cultures of societies: so ingrained that they appear to be the natural and right way to look at the world. Disciplines see things differently; they draw on different conceptual frameworks and approaches, which yield different evidence and interpretations.

I immediately identified with Glass's account of why epidemiology has neglected culture.1 It provides, I think, a strong intellectual buttress for my arguments. Janes and Dressler are gracious enough to applaud my attempts to integrate culture into the social determinants of health, but have, as anthropologists, serious reservations about how I have gone about it. Let me respond to some of these concerns.

Firstly, both attribute to me a more homogeneous or monolithic model of culture than I propose. I fully accept that culture is a fuzzy, complex, dynamic, and multifaceted thing variably distributed, locally influenced, and intimately connected to history, politics, economics, and other social factors. I focus on two key defined and measurable qualities, materialism (or consumerism) and individualism. In my book, Well & Good, I discuss a number of other ‘isms’ of Western culture.2