Culture, Heritage & Health
Culture & Cultural Competency in Health Promotion
Culture, Heritage & Health
This paper will discuss culture and the cultural characteristics that can be associated with various groups and the affect it can have on one’s health in aspects of health protection, maintenance and restoration. It will also discuss the usefulness of a heritage assessment tool in providing better care for patients. The differences will be viewed based on culture in health protection, maintenance and restoration.
A heritage assessment tool is a means to capture a snapshot view of one’s culture/heritage. Culture is defined as “an element of ethnicity, consists of shared patterns of values and behaviors that
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Sadly, I don’t think this is in homage to my ancestors so much as my father’s military career which had us stationed in the Netherlands for four years. In doing research on European Americans for this paper, I find that I am not unique in my lack of culture. “European-Americans have never experienced a truly cohesive experience. Instead of one culture and people . . . Caucasian America is simply a loosely associated series of subcultures and non-cultures.” (Stratis Health Culture Care Connection, 2013). Western medicine is favored by this group of people, though there is a surge in the interest of incorporating other beliefs in as well through acupuncture, herbs, massage therapy, etc. Typically our diets consist of the all American diet, one that is high in red meat, salty foods, processed foods, sugary desserts, and often alcohol. European Americans believe in regular screenings for high blood pressure, yearly exams, preventative healthcare in the means of vaccinations & flu shots. The leading causes of death among this culture are heart disease, cancer, obesity, hypertension, diabetes and stroke among some of the top causes. What these diseases have in common is that you can decrease the probability of death, or even absence from the disease, with good healthcare prevention in changing diet, increasing activity and avoiding high risk behavior (such as smoking). (Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
In evaluating the Heritage Assessment Tool (HAT) two things became immediately obvious. First, the questions provided a fair outline and structure for identifying factors of culture, religion, tradition and environment and how they may influence the subject family’s approach to health maintenance and health restoration. And second, that the medical professional using the HAT must be aware of and sensitive to the scrutinizing nature of the questions and what defensive and evasive responses they may invoke. While conducting these family interviews, I noticed even when asking the questions of my own family that they were not immune to this scrutiny affect. As such, when interviewing the other two families, I was very attentive to them and
In this paper I will be identifying beliefs and values common to my family of origin. I will be using Purnell's Model of cultural competency and will explain the major assumptions of the model in relevance to my culture. The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with a quick overview of the Asian Indian culture. One must be aware of their own culture and the culture of others in order to offer competent and culturally sensitive care and understand how their cultural beliefs may affect their health. (Leuning, Swiggum, Wiegert, and McCullough-Zander, 2002).
An individual’s heritage is about his culture, history or personal experiences it is important to recognise and respect them because it is what makes him individual and unique. If we know them we provide a person centre care and focus on individual’s choices and preferences, he will then feel valued and included.
The Heritage Assessment Tool can be adopted as a dependable tool to gauge, health maintenance, restoration and safeguard of personal, cultural beliefs. The adoption of health assessment tool helps meet the prerequisites of diverse patient populations to offer quality all-inclusive care. The following paper reviews the assessment of three culturally dissimilar families, and demonstrate how a nurse would continue with health promotion centred on the variances in health traditions between the three cultures. The three cultures include Hispanic culture, Native American Indian culture and White American culture. The objectives of this essay are
In America, the number of federally identified tribes is 562 with every tribe having its own culture, belief system and practices. That is why there seem diverse type of behaviors among this population related to healthcare seeking and healthcare attitudes. Amongst the most common components that lead to this diversity in healthcare seeking behaviors is the role of culture which affects healthcare intervention, prevention, and care. So, it is very important to understand the diversity of culture in particular
Evaluation of how family subscribes to these traditions and practices is offered in detail, while offering insight and/or reflection.It is essential for nurses to provide culturally sensitive care to each and every patient in order to establish repor and maintain a safe working relationship with each individual. To provide culturally sensitive care to a nurses patient’s he or she must first assess their own beliefs, values, and culture at large. The nurse can do this by using the Heritage Assessment Tool. This tool shows the nurse how important their heritage is to them and if they have adopted their ways of life from their family’s history and influence. This gives the nurse a starting point
Every individual has a cultural heritage. Each culture views the world differently. Culture is an inherited characteristic and includes knowledge, beliefs, customs, skills, likes and dislikes. The fundamental role of cultural heritage is uniting, respecting the diversities and brings people together to face the future by informing, perceiving and give importance to the understanding of the past (need a reference) Heritage assessment tool was introduced for collecting information about different cultures, nationalities and build cultural competencies among health care professionals. It is used to investigate
A heritage assessment in nursing is a vital tool to learning about a patient. By finding out about the patient’s family and friends we can learn about their support system. If we learn how close to a culture our patient is this will give us an idea of how true they hold their beliefs or if they have went mainstream with the American culture. Doing interviews with different cultures gives us a look into their personal beliefs and can help nurses to provide better care and teaching to these patients. Some patients we will learn were born in
Heritage is a cultural aspect or tradition that has been passed down through generations (Heritage Assessment, 2016). Why would the health professional need to know about a patient’s cultural background? How would this affect the care provided? Health care is specific to the individual needs of a patient, and no two are alike. Nurses should conduct an assessment of the patients’ cultural beliefs, values, religious beliefs, and practices. It is important to learn the meaning of the illness from the patients point of view. Data collected from the cultural assessment will help the patient and nurse to develop a mutual and culturally acceptable plan
Therefore, cultural heritage is the main factor in economic, social, and health promotion of people. Every culture has their own beliefs, values, and perceptions on health and illness. Then, it is imperative for health care providers to assess a cultural heritage on each patient in order to deliver meaningful care for that patient. By using the heritage assessment tool, the three interviewed families revealed some similarities and differences among their health traditions.
The Heritage Assessment Tool can be used as as a reliable tool to assess, health maintenance, protection and restoration of individual cultural beliefs. This evaluation helps meet the needs of different patient populations to provide quality holistic care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the Hispanic, Native American, Chinese, and the author’s own personal
The Heritage Assessment tool is primarily used as a device to evaluate health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration of a person’s cultural beliefs and values (Spector, 2006). This assessment helps aid in providing quality patient care in that it helps to meet and respect the needs of different types of people and their respective backgrounds (Spector, 2002). This particular paper serves to compare and contrast the ethnicities of Indian, Caucasian, and Arabic families using health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration as evaluation markers. The purpose was to identify and isolate different groups of
Cultural competency is important in the health care field, especially in the United States, because of the great diversity. Knowing that people from different cultural backgrounds have specific beliefs on how the body works and is maintained. Researching these differences will allow the healthcare professional to use fewer stereotypes and treat each patient equally. Working in dental offices and attending school with people from the Pacific Islands has led me to develop stereotypes about their culture. I am sure not all of the stereotypes I have are true, so it is important for me to research the culture’s healthcare beliefs and practices before treating the patient. The different beliefs will affect how I approach the patient during the dental hygiene process of care, especially during the initial assessment and during the planning process.
Culture is a pattern of behavior and values shared by an ethnic group. Cultural heritage is a set of traditions within the culture that is hand down from the older generation to the younger generation within the family. These traditions influence the family’s decisions in relation to their diet, education, daily living activities, religious beliefs and practices and also health and illness beliefs. In this paper, the author will focus on the usefulness of applying a heritage assessment in evaluating the needs of a person as a whole. Three different cultures including authors will be discussed about the health maintenance, health promotion, and health restoration. The author will also evaluate health traditions which
Medical anthropology looks at health across all culture and how health is affected by culture. This is a different perspective then what medical practitioners are trained in medical school, which is they are focusing on looking for the disease and treating it. When it comes to a person’s health and treatment it is hard for a medical practitioner to consider all of the possibility that could play role in a person’s illness and/or disease. The medical practitioner does their best to find the disease and treat it as fast as possible (due to the volumes of patients that they have to see), but that is not always the best thing for them to do. There are other factors that could play an important role in the patient’s illness and/or disease and that the medical practitioner should take time to listen and talking to the patients to get the full story. In this paper, I will talk about the importance of culture in understanding health, the “cultural competency”, and others factors that influence health.