Traditional medicines used by Pakistani migrants from Mirpur living in Bradford, Northern England

Abstract

Despite the increasing relevance of trans-cultural healthcare issues in public health policies, knowledge is still very restricted about migrant communities’ perceptions and use of traditional medicines (TMs) within multicultural societies in Western countries. In this field study, an in-depth study was carried out of the herbal drugs still in use among Pakistani migrants from Mirpur living in Bradford, in the north of England. To record TMs known and still used among Pakistani migrants from Mirpur presently living in Bradford; to assess the degree of overlapping between food and medicine in the provision of healthcare within domestic arenas among this community; to analyse how knowledge of TMs is changing among different generations and among the different waves of migrants who have moved from Pakistan to Bradford in the last few decades. Semi-structured and focus-groups interviews with 37 members of the community, as well as other standard techniques of the ethnobiological investigations: free-listing, participant observation, and the collection and identification of the relevant plant material. TMs are still very popular amongst Pakistani migrants in Bradford, and are regularly delivered in domestic arenas. Two-thirds of the interviewees declared that they prefer TM treatments to conventional Western medicine. Fifty-six different remedies, mainly plant-based, are still used nowadays, and more than half of the recorded remedies represent food-medicines. However, knowledge of Mirpuri TMs is decreasing amongst the younger generations, and the level of knowledge of TMs seems to be dependent on the length of time since the migration from Pakistan took place. Public health policies and strategies aimed at improving migrants’ health should take into account the perception and acceptance of plant-based TMs within domestic arenas among Pakistani migrants, and especially their use against diabetes. Concerns about eventual toxicity and side effects of traditional herbal drugs, as well as their interaction with pharmaceuticals, should be carefully considered, since a few of the herbal drugs quoted in this survey are little known in Western herbalism and in modern evidence-based phytotherapy.