[Clinical medical anthropology and immigrant's mental health in France]. / Anthropologie médicale clinique et santé mentale des migrants en France.

Clinical anthropology offers a great advantage for understanding and managing patient/caretaker relationships in intercultural situations. Instead of falling into the trap of marginalizing and above all needless culturalization, health care workers must learn to integrate the cultural aspects of the representation of mental health and illness as opposed to using them as a guiding light. In this way, since the caretaker or therapist does not have to master anthropologic factors, he/she is not obliged to unknowingly hide his/her own nosographic explanatory model which does not necessarily take cultural aspects into account. Clinical anthropology allows the general practitioner and specialist as well as the psychologist and psychiatrist of all theoretical orientations to manage patient relationships and care more efficiently with regard to diagnosis, therapeutic decision-making, analysis, and psychotherapy. The question of whether the patient and caretaker are of the same origin is asked differently: the question of the universality of psychopathology is asked with greater clarity and less risk of error. Our health care system, which is based on common law benefits as do consulting immigrants since their request for services are answered more efficiently and directly. The only problem is that the conceptual and clinical horizon health care workers must be broadened. This goal cannot be achieved by magic and will require training and education.

[The health of foreign populations in France]. / La santé des populations d'origine étrangère en France.

In France, 8% of the population are foreign. They come from the lowest socio-economic level. In distinguishing the new arrivals from those who have lived in France for several years, the migrant related health patterns are applied. Health problems of foreigners in France can be examined in a number of different ways: --Foreign workers are found in unskilled work and in jobs where they are constantly subjected to hazards of the workplace, occupational health risks and accidents. --The quality of maternal and child health care among foreign women is lower than among the French. --Foreign children are hospitalized more often and for longer than French children. The types of illness are not specific. The truancy rate is more significant than the national mean. --Restrictions on the opportunities for enjoying certain social rights, administrative and financial obstacles encountered as well as difficulties in communication all make it harder to meet the needs of this section of the population.