**1. Introduction**

Human beings are social animals with an innate desire to conform to socially accepted norms and values. Over periods of time, some of these norms become standards that all members of the community are expected to adhere to. Deviance from these standards is seen as absurd, wrong, or frankly abnormal. However, many of these cultural mores have no scientific basis and, some of them actually promote behaviors with negative health consequences. While the health consequences of many of these practices may not be of public health significance, some have major short and long term impact on the health of individuals in the community. The more difficult ones to appreciate are those practices that do not immediately appear to have deleterious health consequences but, may have direct and indirect long term impact on the health of individuals, families and the community.

It must be appreciated that not all cultural practices are deleterious to health. Some are actually beneficial. For example, many communities in rural Africa forbid intimacy between a newly delivered mother and her partner for some months. This practice encourages child spacing and allows the mother to adequately breastfeed the new baby [1].

Cultural practices are varied across different contexts. They have usually been viewed as the normal way of life and may be actively encouraged in the communities.

This chapter is a review of literature on some cultural practices with overt health consequences. It seeks to highlight some of these practices in Africa as prototype and explore ways they can be addressed at public health level.
