Use of Acupuncture by 1970s Revolutionaries of Color
The South Bronx “Toolkit Care” Concept
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11025752 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eana Meng (0000-0002-3667-6585, At the time of the study, Eana Meng was with the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK., corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 111 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 896-906 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-0036 • E-ISSN: 1541-0048 |
| Publisher | American Public Health Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2105/ajph.2020.306080 |
| PMID | 33734839 |
| OpenAlex | W3138303180 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 4 |
Failed by mainstream medical institutions, 1970s revolutionaries of color sought to take health care into their own hands. A lesser-known phenomenon was their use of acupuncture. In 1970, an alliance of Black, Latinx, and White members at Lincoln Detox, a drug treatment program in the South Bronx area of New York City, learned of acupuncture as an alternative to methadone. In Oakland, California, Tolbert Small, MD, used acupuncture for pain management following his exposure to the practice as part of a 1972 Black Panther Party delegation to China. Unaware of one another then, the Lincoln team and Small were similarly driven to “serve the people, body and soul.” They enacted “toolkit care,”—self-assembled, essential community care—in response to dire situations such as the intensifying drug crisis. These stories challenge the traditional American history of acupuncture and contribute innovations to and far beyond the addiction field by presenting a holistic model of prevention and care. They advance a nuanced definition of integrative medicine as one that combines medical and social practices, and their legacies are currently carried out by thousands of health care practitioners globally
Acupuncture · Addiction · Alliance · Alternative medicine · Delegation · Family medicine · Health care · Integrative medicine · Mainstream · Political science · Popularity · Psychiatry · Sociology · White (mutation) · Empathy and Medical Education · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History of Medical Practice · Law · Medicine · Nursing · Gerontology
| Citations per year | 1.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |