Culture informs all human behavior; it allows us to exist as social animals. Yet no other variable used in health research is as poorly defined or tested as is culture (Dressler, Oths, & Gravlee, 2005; Hruschka, 2009). There has been surprisingly little attention to identify how culture works or to develop standards to guide the integration or application of culture in health research. 

This report provides the first multidisciplinary, consensus effort to define culture and identify the necessary scientific elements and methods required to identify what culture is and how it functions to influence health differentially among diverse population groups along the entire disease continuum from prevention and incidence to morbidity and mortality from most diseases. 

The Cultural Framework for Health (CFH) presented in this report: 

1. Provides a tool for researchers and program evaluators to use in project design. 
2. Identifies why culture is fundamental for understanding human behavior and the impact of cultural ways of life on mental and physical health and well-being. 
3. Identifies the major scientific challenges with the current use of the concept of culture for health behavior research (see Table 1.1)
4. Presents the methods and tools to discover the salient cultural processes involved with health behaviors, and how the processes and behaviors influence health and well-being. 
5. Provides a processual framework that guides researchers through six steps that more effectively distinguish cultural processes relevant in any given study context, and how they likely influence health outcomes.