The dominant biomedical model of health does not take into account lay perspectives (SITE BOOK). Lay perspectives detail the common sense and personal experiences of ordinary people. A cultural perspective, such as the Hmong cultures perspective on health, is considered a lay perspective. Unlike Hmong culture, where illness is viewed as the imbalance between the soul and body, the dominant biomedical model of health views health in terms of pathology and disease (SITE THE BOOK). Although Hmong culture considers spiritual and environmental factors, the dominant biomedical model of health only views health from a biological perspective and neglects the environmental and psychological factors that affect health. In the United States, depression is an illness caused by neurochemical or hormonal imbalance and certain thinking styles. Depression is the result of unfortunate experiences that the brain has difficulty processing (SITE 7). Unlike in Hmong culture, where Hmong diagnosed with depression report an interaction between a spirit, people diagnosed with depression in Western culture self-report having symptoms such as feeling tired, miserable, and suicidal (SITE