Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
Access the interactive media piece, “Social, Behavioral, and Cultural Factors in Public Health: Increasing Cultural Competency.”
Navigate and review the information in the interactive media piece and complete the assessment at the end. The assessment is based on the information presented in the media piece (although you may also apply what you have learned from other course readings to complete the assessment).Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
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Social scientists have made significant strides in shedding light on the basic social and cultural structures and processes that influence health. Social and cultural factors influence health by affecting exposure and vulnerability to disease, risk-taking behaviors, the effectiveness of health promotion efforts, and access to, availability of, and quality of health care. Social and cultural factors also play a role in shaping perceptions of and responses to health problems and the impact of poor health on individuals’ lives and well-being.
In addition, such factors contribute to understanding societal and population processes such as current and changing rates of morbidity, survival, and mortality. Numerous reports from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council have pointed to the importance of social and cultural factors for health and the opportunities for improving health through a better understanding of mechanisms linking the social and cultural environment to specific health outcomes.
To realize these opportunities, social science research related to health must be further developed and ultimately integrated into interdisciplinary, multi-level studies of health. Linking research from the macro-societal levels, through behavioral and psychological levels, to the biology of disease will provide the integrative health research necessary to fully understand health and illness. Health Disparities Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
African American, Native Americans, and low socioeconomic status (SES) populations continue to experience substantial disparities in the burden of disease and death when compared to the European-Americans and higher SES populations. Because the existence of racial/ethnic, social class, and rural-urban health disparities are to a large extent influenced by behavioral and social factors, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research is committed to developing better knowledge of their specific causes and participating in finding solutions. Health Literacy
Low health literacy is a wide spread problem, affecting more than 90 million adults in the United States, where 43% of adults demonstrate only the most basic or below-basic levels of prose literacy. Low health literacy results in patients’ inadequate engagement in decisions regarding their health care and can hinder their ability to realize the benefits of health care advances. Research has linked low or limited health literacy with such adverse outcomes as poorer self-management of chronic diseases, fewer healthy behaviors, higher rates of hospitalizations, and overall poorer health outcomes.
Dr. Williams is culturally biased. He handles his patients differently depending on their cultures and their socio-economic status. He is insensitive to other cultures and this aspect greatly influences the decisions of the families he works with adversely affecting the health outcomes of their patients. In addition, Dr. Williams is inconsiderate and his approach to patients from “other” cultures is prejudicial.Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
He hardly understands how people from different cultures behave and doesn’t know how to handle children. He is not inquisitive. He merely makes assumptions concerning his patients’ cultures and backgrounds. By making assumptions about his the families he works with, he overlooks the socio-economic factors affecting them.
By using technical medical terms without worrying about the families’ health literacy, Dr. Williams jeopardizes the ultimate health outcomes of the children. It is also important to note that Dr. William is culturally incompetent. His values, attitudes, and practices do not allow him to work effectively with multiple cultures (Core concepts in cultural competence 2009).Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
He doesn’t “honor and respect the beliefs, languages, interpersonal styles, and behaviors of families and children receiving his medical services.” Dr Williams does not respect his patients’ health beliefs. He disregards families’ beliefs about what causes illnesses and their preferred treatment plans. This shortfall inevitably disappoints the families he deals with thereby causing discontentment and dissatisfaction with his clientele.
Ultimately, the families Dr William works with ends up getting inadequate, poor, and unsatisfactory treatment thereby endangering the lives of children he handles.
Culture, ethnicity, race, and socio-economic status play significant roles in shaping families’ experiences in the healthcare system.
In their study, Smedley, Stith, and Nelson (2002) argue that “the cultures of racial and ethnic minorities greatly influence the choice of their health care delivery system including how families from a given cultural group communicates and their family support structures including their coping strategies, and even their readiness to seek medical treatment. According to Van Ryn and Burke (2000), most families attribute certain diseases to socio-cultural and ethnic factors.Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
Racial and ethnic minorities in the US live in socio-economic environments of inequality, which inevitably predisposes them violence, poverty, and racial discrimination. Studies have shown that poverty adversely affects families’ experiences in health care systems.
In fact, Smedley, Stith, and Nelson (2002) concur that poor families receive poor medical treatment compared to rich people who receive proper medical attention because they are adequately covered by medical insurance programs.
Racial discrimination severely affects families’ experiences in healthcare system. In addition, the culture of racial and ethnic minorities greatly determines the type of health services they receive. Some clinical environments hardly respect the cultures of people they serve and this deters minority groups an opportunity to receive efficient healthcare services.Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay
In healthcare systems, disparities arise because of various reasons. They arise because of differences in access to healthcare systems and because of differences in the quality of healthcare delivered. Other factors that influence disparities in healthcare systems include access of health care services, infrastructural barriers such as transportation and one’s access to medical professionals, health care utilization’s that is regular, acute, or chronic care including unnecessary hospital admissions.
Van Ryn and Burke (200) affirm that patients’ health literacy skills, cultural competency, and health information influence disparities in health outcomes.Cultural Factors in Public Health Essay