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Impacts of culture in health and healthcare essay
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With this uniqueness comes many groups of people who struggle to understand other culture’s beliefs and their knowledge on health and illness. The lack of knowledge an individual has pertaining
For decades, a person’s socioeconomic status or SES has affected the health care that people receive due to race and “wealth”. This problem has plagued American society because of these factors leading to many receiving inadequate health care. All of these factors for someone’s SES, has changed a lot in the health care domain that is unfair to many who are not the “ideal” and are a minority. Due to this the perception, experiences with health care waver and are different between the stages of these SES’s. No matter the status of a person they should receive the same amount of care, treatment, and closer.
Health is considered as one of the most precious assets of a human. A person in the pink of health shall have more opportunities in his life than one who suffers from many harmful sicknesses. It is true that a strong, healthy body can make us be happy, vigor and enthusiastic to accomplish our works perfectly and to enjoy a far more cheerful, longer life. Viewed from different angles, we cannot deny that health is the basis of success, and the loss of health is the loss of everything. As A.J Reb Materi once said, “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health” (n.d.), many of us have lately been in the face of a great number of problems regarding taking great care of our golden health.
(CDC Health Disparities & Inequalities Report – United States, 2013, Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Supplement, November 22, 2013, Vol.62, Supplement No. 3, pg.1-187) Statistics such as these has inspired me to seek a career in the sector of technology and science working in the field of healthcare as a Physical Therapist. Health disparities represent the differences in health between populations and affect groups of people based on various factors like age, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and demographics. For instance, differences in disease rates, receipt of preventive vaccinations, or risky behaviors are some examples of health disparities. Disparities in health have been recognized for years, resulting in some groups receiving less and lower quality health care than others and experiencing poorer health outcomes.
There is a lot of misinterpretation about health, illness and culture, and attempt to clarify these concept using culture is compared to “resting on unexamined foundation” (Padilla & Villalobos, 2006). Barrio & Kay (1977*) explained that physical health, environment and mental wellbeing are fundamental understanding of health among Mexican American. This culture is also characterized by set of values which include family, spirituality/religiosity, folk medicine and respect (Padilla & Villalobos, 2006). Religious beliefs are deeply rooted in Mexican American culture, and guides individual understanding of health and illness (Alvarado, 2008). Alvarado (2008) found that the majority of Mexican American identified themselves as a Christian, especially Roman Catholicism.
Within the presentation, there was mention of how lack of access to not only nutritionally rich food, but also food insecurity in general leads to chronic stress and desperation in individuals. These remarks made me think of the different ways of measuring health as listed in the article describing health disparities in U.S. by Dr. Donald A. Barr which described the various ways that health could be measured including physically, socioculturally, and psychologically. Those that are dealing with food insecurity may at times be physically healthy but may suffer greatly in terms of a psychological based definition of health as they are constantly worried about their ability to get enough food in the future. This can also relate back to differences in socioeconomic status as discussed in the presentation and in the recent discussion paper as well. Those of higher socioeconomic status are not worried about getting food or maintaining shelter so they have more time and mental energy that can be spent on maintaining their health, whereas those of lower socioeconomic status are not afforded the luxury of such time as they have the daily struggle of maintaining the basic
A link between poverty, low educational attainment and poorer health outcomes with increased morbidity and mortality is well established (Causes of Health Disparities, n.d.). Also, certain religious practices may not allow one person to obtain the believed cure or care needed to prevent certain illnesses and diseases. A lack of income and low educational attainment decreases one 's chances of having quality access to healthcare. If one is not able to afford health care or is ignorant to what the health care field has to offer, illness and disease may build up over time, increasing chances for a health disparity. Gender and age could also cause one not to want to obtain health care, furthermore decreasing their health.
My personal philosophy of nursing seeks to incorporate the art of conveying nursing science holistically with care and human dignity. The four nursing metaparadigm concepts are described in relation to nursing as a science and an art and provide the base upon which my view of nursing and my personal philosophy are derived. As a nursing student at UIC, I am well aware of the fact that the best outcome for any patient may not be improvement in health, but rather, a dignified death during the end of life care. End of life care includes a significant quality in care and human dignity.
Kaiser Family Foundation (2012), health and health care despairs refer to differences in the health and health care between population groups. The health disparity generally refers to a higher burden of illness, injury, disability, or mortality experienced by one population group relative to another. A health care disparity typically refers to the differences between groups in health coverage, access to care, and quality of care. While disparities are commonly viewed through the lens of race and ethnicity, they occur across many dimensions, including socioeconomic status, age, location, gender, disability status, and sexual orientation (HKFF,
The practice of nursing evolves daily from theories and philosophies that are proven by researchers, resulting in growth of the medical profession and advanced evidence based knowledge. Philosophies According to Alligood (2014b), philosophies are specific theories that focus on one or more metaparadigm concepts in a wide spectrum philosophical way (p. 43). For a person to understand philosophies it is required to understand the knowledge type, metaparadigms. Metaparadigm Metaparadigm is the vast perspective of a discipline and a way to describe a concern specifically to a profession or department (Alligood, 2014b, p.42).
In short, the biological model of health is mainly defined from the absence of disease, from the model that is well-matched with positive meanings in relation to balance of normal functioning. The social model health is actually a positive state of well-being and wholeness linked with however this is not mainly explained from the non-existence of disease, physical, mental impairment and illness (Gross, 2010). Overall the concepts of ill health and health are not balanced. Non-existences of disease might be part of health, however health is considered more than the “absence of disease”.
This essay aims to identify and evaluate the inequalities in health care in different areas of society, namely disability and gender. Firstly, it is important to understand what we mean by health inequalities. It is commonly understood that health inequality refers to unjust differences in the health status, usually preventable, between different groups, populations or individuals. The existence of such inequalities is attributed to the unequal distributions of social, environmental and economic conditions within societies. Such conditions determine the risk of individuals getting ill, their ability to prevent sickness, as well as opportunities to access to the right treatments.
Health inequalities are preventable and unjust differences in health status experienced by certain population groups. People in lower socio-economic groups are more likely to experience chronic ill-health and die earlier than those who are more advantaged. Health inequalities are not only apparent between people of different socio-economic groups – they exist between different genders and different ethnic groups (“Health inequalities,” n.d.). The situation in which people are born, grow, develop, work and age are affected by social, economic, environmental and most importantly political factors.
Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of mental illness. It is the "psychological state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioural adjustment”. From the perspective of positive psychology or holism, mental health may include an individual 's ability to enjoy life, and create a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health includes "subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, inter-generational dependence, and self-actualization of one 's intellectual and emotional potential, among others”
When talking about the physical health of someone it applies to how a person’s body responds to diseases and the body’s
