Cultural Diversity: Framewor Social Justice In Health Care

Diversity is an important facet of nursing today. Aside from living a country that is considered a melting pot, nurses encounter numerous patients daily from all different backgrounds. Understanding culture and diversity is extremely vital to the way nurses deliver health care. With our population becoming more increasingly diverse, it is important that nurses and healthcare providers address the cultural needs of patients to deliver efficient care. So, what is diversity? The definition can mean something different to every person. But regarding health, diversity is the various practices, attitudes, customs and behavior among groups of people of different ethnic, national, or racial backgrounds that play a role in an individual’s health care (Cultural Diversity, 2018). A topic, relating to cultural diversity, that will be discussed in this paper is spirituality. A social justice

religion, ethnicity, economic class) (Benjamin, 2015). To achieve health equity, social justice needs to be ensured. It was proposed that social justice be added to the nurse’s metaparadigm because it is believed to be interconnected with the four metaparadigm concepts (nursing, health, environment, and person) (McEwen & Wills, 2014). How does spirituality relate to social justice? Due to the topic being political, religion and spirituality has been avoided in nursing literature over previous decades (Reimer-Kirkham, 2014). But with the population becoming increasingly diverse, spirituality is something that is becoming more important in health care. Spirituality should be looked at from a social justice framework that way the patient receives equal health care despite their religious or spiritual background. If we want to ensure that effective care is being delivered, health professionals need to understand and address