Understanding Explanatory Models in Health Care

Imagine you’re playing Minecraft and suddenly your game glitches—your character freezes mid-jump,

or a block disappears right when you land on it. One friend immediately says,

“It’s lag!” Another insists, “Your WiFi is garbage.” Someone else blames the device you’re

using, and another person says it’s because you’re running too many mods.

Even though all of you saw the same glitch, everyone explains it in a totally

different way, based on what they think usually causes problems in the game.

That idea—different people giving different explanations for the same problem—is basically what an

explanatory model is in medical anthropology. Explanatory models describe how people understand what