Medical doctors’ attitudes and beliefs about diet and health are more like those of their lay countrymen (France, Germany, Italy, UK and USA) than those of doctors in other countries

The relation between diet and health has become a public health concern in Western/developed countries. Physicians are influenced in their views about health by their medical training and membership in a particular culture/nation to one extent or another. Their medical training is itself influenced by both a common body of accepted formal knowledge and practice and culture- or nation-specific influences on medical education. In this study, we compared physicians from different countries and physicians and lay individuals from the same country with regard to beliefs and attitudes about the relation between diet and health and other health-related issues. Telephone interviews about diet and health conducted with randomly sampled physicians and laypersons in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the USA revealed substantial cultural/national differences and few differences between physicians and laypersons of the same country. Three different measures of similarity converged in supporting the claim that in the areas of diet and health, physicians resemble their countrymen more than they resemble physicians from other Western countries. The degree to which differences in culture- and nation-mediated medical education influence these results is to be determined.

Research highlights
► Main topics were beliefs and attitudes about the relation between diet and health.
► Compared physicians from five countries and physicians with lay of same country.
► Telephone interviews conducted with randomly sampled physicians and laypersons.
► Found substantial cultural/national differences.
► Also found few differences between physicians and laypersons of the same country.