Southeast Asian refugees and school health personnel.

This paper describes methodological and demographic limitations of attempts to generalize how traditional Southeast Asian cultural beliefs may affect attitudes of refugee children to the health services and style of education in American schools. It presents brief overviews of the diverse cultural influences upon Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and then discusses some of the psychological consequents of cultural change observed with uprooted children. Finally, it describes the role of school health personnel as a cultural bridge carrying out three functions: (1) Direct Services; (2) Indirect Services; and (3) Research.