...Differences in Health Traditions and Cultures Growing diversity in the United States is veracity in the 21st century. Undeniable proof on poor quality of health care provided to ethnic and racial minorities of all ages, compared to non-minorities, were provided by The Institute of Medicine. Attempts to remove health inequalities rising from differences in culture should concentrate on creating patient-clinician reliance relationships, knowing the cultural surrounding conditions of health responses and humanizing one’s consideration to cultural differences in association with the administrative process and preferences in health care (Schmidt, 2012). Discussing the usefulness of applying a heritage evaluation in assessing the requirements of the whole person is helpful in looking at one’s roots and hereditary. The prominent sociable society in the world has raised worry on modified attention in health care. The cultural surroundings of an organization or society have extensive result on management and power of health care issues, which is necessary. The rise in public responsiveness to the support of firm health and disease anticipation has encouraged the formation of method that makes it easier for professionals in healthcare to know the people in their care. Implementing Heritage Assessment tool is one of the mechanisms to get back the attributes of a person before administrating health involvement (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). As a person from Indian background...
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...Different Cultures and Their Health Traditions The Heritage Assessment Tool is a valuable tool that can be used by health care professionals to help them become aware of the client’s ethnic, religious and cultural background in relation to their views on health, illness and diseases. As defined by Winkelman, culture, is an element of ethnicity, consists of shared patterns of values and behaviors that characterize a particular group (as cited in Edelman & Mandle, 2010, p.32) Assessing these culturally diverse individuals and being aware of traditional health practices will improve the quality of care given to them. In this paper the writer will discuss the Hispanic, Haitian, and Filipino cultural backgrounds and how their heritage, as well as what their beliefs and values, affect their views on heath maintenance, protection, and restoration. Heritage Assessment Usefulness In assessing one’s heritage, cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds and preferences, and how it may directly relate to the person’s views on health and illness, the healthcare professional will be able to understand the individual as a whole and be able to tend to their needs better rather than just focusing on the illness itself. Being culturally competent means providing health care based on the understanding of the total context of the client’s complex situation through knowledge, attitude, and skills (CGU, 2011). The heritage assessment tool provides a good basis for the patient and health care professional...
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...The Differences in Health Traditions between Cultures Each individual has an exclusively cultural heritage attachment that is comprised of a lot of different customs and values. It is almost impossible for anyone or group of people to live everyday by not practicing according to their beliefs or cultural background. Being born to a person depending on whom they are or where they live means so much in some cultures. For example, I was born into a family where my parents were both educated and good practicing Catholics. This automatically puts me in a middle class family or made my statues a little higher than so many people whose parents are not educated. I consider myself fortunate and that is mostly why I am always humble in life. I was born in the eastern part of Nigeria; the westerners and the northerners make up the rest of the population. Nigeria is the largest country in West Africa; most of the people are farmers and could not afford to go to college and at least get a formal education. In my culture, not many people could afford to go to a hospital for health reasons. Instead, more people rely heavily on herbal medicine, which is part of our tradition. Some people use modern medicine depending on what their families could afford. Growing up in the mist of both traditions, I have learned to practice not only one but two of them respectively. I believe that one’s heritage or culture is a practice no one can afford to forget because it is embedded into our lives. Living...
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...in the economic, social and health promotion of an individual. The use of heritage assessment tools helps people to evaluate someone’s heritage, as well as traditional health methods used to maintain health, protect health, and restore health; Heritage assessment tool is very useful for the health care professionals when they are dealing with a person’s physical, mental, and spiritual beliefs. Every person has a cultural heritage and their views are different too. Different cultures have different values and beliefs of health, disease and treatment. By knowing these cultural competencies we can provide a holistic approach care to their health. This tool helps both the patient and the health care provider by opening a pathway for an effective communication of one’s own values and beliefs, in regards to health and illness. Culture is an inherited quality and it includes beliefs, knowledge and custom. The basic role of cultural heritage is bringing people together and respects the cultural diversities. The tool helps to understand heritage assessment of a person according to how deeply he answered the question. Interview of Three Different Families Knowledge about traditional culture makes people aware about their health maintenance, protection and restoration of the health. The main purpose of this study is to compare the differences of Indian, Hispanic and Kenyan heritage and health tradition. While comparing the differences in health tradition between three families, we can...
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...heritage assessment is a subpart to the overall nursing assessment. Assessing a patient’s heritage allows the nurse to obtain more information about a patient’s culture, including beliefs about health and values, this is important to providing cultural health care. One’s heritage includes information about their cultural beliefs and practices of the family and ethno religious community (Jarvis, C., 2012). Through a heritage assessment the nurse can obtain a vast amount of information about the patient/ family, including but not limited to, where ancestors were born, how many siblings they have, if the family originated in another country, how often time is spent with family, religion, if the patient prefers the company of people with the same values and religion or ethnic background, what type of foods the patient prepares, and the patient’s native language. This paper will discuss what the author learned from completing a heritage assessment tool, the usefulness of a heritage assessment tool when assessing a patient/ family/ community as a whole. This paper will also compare the health traditions of three different families (and cultures) to include, health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration, while identifying common traditions based on the author’s heritage. What the families ascribe their traditions to will also be discussed. To begin, what was learned from the heritage assessment tool and why it is useful to apply a heritage assessment in evaluating the...
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...new immigrants living in the U.S. over the next two decades (Plumer June, 2013). The results will be an increase of different cultures and traditions which healthcare workers will need to consider within their practice. The goal of this paper is to show the reader the usefulness of the Heritage Assessment tool when it is used to evaluate the individual’s needs in relation to culture and tradition. The author of the paper will share with the reader the interviews of families from three different cultures (the first being her own) and explore the common health traditions of their cultures and how the families subscribe to the traditions. Heritage Assessment tool The usefulness of the heritage assessment tool is to give the provider a way to understand the role of culture and traditions and how it affects the way a patient views health and illness. The tool uses simple questions regarding cultural background of an individual such as: the relationship of family members, religious beliefs, ethnic activities and language. At the end of the assessment the nurse will have a better idea of how the individual identifies with a particular culture and traditions. Mexican and Iraqi health culture and traditions The author of this paper is of Mexican heritage. Her grandmother came over from Mexico when she was a small child. The author...
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... HERITAGE ASSESSMENT TOOL Heritage refers to practices, beliefs and traditions that are passed down through the years, from one generation to the next. In the United States, one finds people from all over the world. This diversity results in different cultures and traditions. As health care providers, one has to be aware of and be sensitive of a person’s traditions, values, and beliefs as these influence the patient’s behavior and attitudes towards healthcare practices. “A cultural competent health system must incorporate the importance of cultural assessment and provide nurses with tools that will help them with their planning care and treating patients from different cultures” p.16 (Green & Reinckens, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of the Heritage Assessment Tool to evaluate the needs of a person as a whole; identify and evaluate common health practices based on cultural beliefs and values of three different families from Mexico, Philippines and China and how they subscribe to these traditions and practices to address their familys’ health maintenance, health protection and health recovery. The writer will include her culture as well. Efficacy of Heritage Assessment Tool The Heritage Assessment Tool is useful to evaluate the cultural needs and health traditions of a person. The assessment consists on a set of questions that explores a person’s ethnicity, traditions, language, religion, food, and family values. By applying the Heritage...
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...Running head: HERITAGE ASSESSMENT TOOL: EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT Heritage Assessment Tool: Evaluation of Different Cultures and Individual Views of Health Micaela Simon Grand Canyon University Family-Centered Health Promotion 429V Melanie Escobar RN MSN August 31, 2012 Heritage Assessment Tool: Evaluation of different Cultures and Individual Views of Health 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 cultural beliefs from perspectives of health traditions, maintenance, promotion and restoration of health. The objectives are to identify different families and the own common health traditions based of the cultural heritage. Evaluate and discuss how the families ascribe to traditions and practices. The evaluation of these different cultures reveal similarities and differences in traditions that may help provide holistic optimal health delivery. The definition of cultural awareness is an individual’s awareness of their understanding between themselves and other backgrounds, attitudes to health and specific cultural values (Cultural awareness, n.d). Cultural competence refers to knowledge and skills that must be obtained to care for culturally...
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...Heritage Assessment 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 are based on her own other two families. The evaluation of different culture will reveal similarities and differences in traditions, which can help nurses to provide holistic approach towards care delivery to gain optimal health outcomes. Heritage assessment tool is a very good way in finding out patients’ cultural values and beliefs towards health maintenance, protection, and restoration for a nurse to take a holistic approach towards providing care and education to the patient. In summarizing what the author has learned from the Heritage Assessment Tool (HAT) is that, the author and her husband both were born in a Muslim country and lived there for the best part of their childhood. Her husband migrated to US when he was fifteen and the author...
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...America’s diverse population demands that health care workers be culturally competent (Edelman et al, 2014). In order to be culturally competent, the patient’s health traditions should be addressed as they relate to their ethnicity, religion, and heritage. This can be achieved by completion of the Heritage Assessment Tool (HAT). The Heritage Assessment Tool allows health care professionals, especially nurses, to have improved patient-nurse relationships and allows the patient to be treated as a whole being with respect to their beliefs and traditions. This paper will discuss the usefulness of applying the HAT as it evaluates the needs of three diverse families. The families of Vietnamese Americans, Mexican Americans, and Italian Americans will be discussed to identify the differences in health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. The families’ health traditions based on their cultural heritage will also be identified. Usefulness of Applying the Heritage Assessment Tool The Heritage Assessment tool evaluates the degree to which an individual lives by their cultural beliefs and traditions. The questionnaire contains 29 questions to help determine if a person is traditional in their culture or if they are more acculturated with less compliance to their traditional practices. The questions examine family relationships, religious beliefs, ethnic traditions and beliefs. The tool brings awareness to the many culturally based health beliefs and practices. The HAT allows...
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...diverse cultural background. To provide quality care they should be able to understand the cultural heritage. Culture is that which shapes the person. Heritage is made of practices and tradition example like language, norms, behavior, belief, values that are passed from parent to children. This paper will discuss the importance of applying heritage assessment tool to assess health tradition of culturally diverse population. Based on heritage assessment tool this paper addresses the health maintance, health protection, and health restoration of culturally different families of Indian, Philippines and Pakistani, and evaluate and discuss how the families subscribe to these tradition and practices. The author include her own health tradition based on her cultural heritage. Heritage Assessment tool in Evaluating the Need of Whole Person Treating the person as a whole is extremely important in nursing practice. That means nurse assess the person as a whole. To understand fully the nurse should have the knowledge of their culture and heritage. Culture and heritage has a main role in shaping the person. Heritage is made of practices and tradition that are passed from one generation to next. It is also about what has been passed from the family, community and place where people have been raised. When it comes to health care field health tradition and practices mostly based on their cultural values beliefs and practices and it varies from...
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...The Influence of Heritage on Current Culture 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 for his or her own competency because once the nurse knows their own beliefs they will know what to keep in mind as their own biases that may hinder or limit care of their patients. The Heritage Assessment tool can then be used with the nurses’ patients in assessing how much they follow their cultural heritage. When interviewing families from different cultures one can see the disparities between them and their perception of their health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. Applying the Heritage Assessment in Evaluating the Needs of the Whole Person The Heritage Assessment is a useful tool in evaluating the needs of the patient and in being able to provide holistic patient care. The Heritage Assessment Tool assesses whether...
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...Cultural Competence Culture and Cultural Competency in Health Promotion Valsamma Xavi Grand Canyon University: NRS 429V Family and Health Promotion 09-13-2014 In today’s society, nurses interact and care for many individuals from various cultures. Nurses are responsible for understanding and valuing culture and upholding the rights and dignity of each individual. Cultural competence can be defined as “the level of knowledge-based skills required to provide effective clinical care to patients from a particular ethnic or racial group” (Bureau of Health Professions, 2004). Cultural competence requires the nurse to distinguish their own beliefs, in addition to those of the patients and to learn to be sensitive to patient’s cultural needs. Using the heritage assessment tool and interviewing individuals from three different cultural backgrounds we can see how cultural competence can help in health promotion. I was born and raised in India, and lived there for over half my life and then I migrated to the United States. Although we have lived here for over twenty years, many of the traditions which we practiced in India are still practiced within our family today. When I grew up in India, I remember having friends from various religions and different ethnic groups. I remember waking up to the smell of my mother’s tea and the sound of the animals in our farm. My family is a strong Roman Catholic family, and we all prayed together to God to keep us in good health. To this day, my...
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...Culture: How It Is Related to Health Grand Canyon University Family Centered Health Promotion NRS-429V Shauna Wise September 7, 2014 Culture: How It Is Related to Health As nurses we encounter people every day from a variety of cultures, in healthcare our understanding of each patient’s cultural values will help guide us in providing care that is individualized and respectful while at the same time providing evidence based care that is safe for our patients. To provide culturally competent care to patients nurses must be aware of their own culture before they can be aware of others cultures, each culture views health, wellness, illness and healthcare workers in a different light (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014, Chapter 2). One assessment tool that can be useful for a nurse to gain an understanding of a patient’s culture or heritage is the Heritage Assessment Tool (Spector, 2000), an assessment was completed on 3 families from different cultures. Each family’s culture views health maintenance, health protection and health restoration in a different way. The first family that the assessment was completed for was a family that is from Mexico and all the family is from Mexico, some have moved to America while there are others that have stayed in Mexico. Mexican culture is strongly influenced by family and religion, for health maintenance, protection and restoration they rely on practices of the old ways that are performed by curanderos, spiritualists, yerbero’s and...
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...Heritage Health Assessment Tracy Shrum Grand Canyon University Heritage Health Assessment A complete health assessment needs to take into consideration a family’s risk factors by exploring their lifestyle, biological and environmental factors, social, psychological, cultural and spiritual dimensions that all impact their health care. The nurse’s role with families is to educate on preventive health services, raise awareness of modifiable risk factors and assist the family in influencing healthy behaviors within their family. (Edelman & Mandle, 2010) One resource utilized to assess heritage’s influence on health is a 29 question heritage assessment tool that examines who you are, your heritage and how closely a person identifies with their traditional heritage.(Spector, 2009) “This tool is very useful in setting the stage for assessing and understanding a person’s traditional health and illness beliefs and practices and compare them to one’s inconsistent heritage, the greater the number of positive responses, the greater the person’s identification with a traditional heritage.” Heritage consists of four major components that affect one’s health care beliefs socialization, culture, religion and ethnicity. (Spector, 2009) Upon completing the heritage assessment tool, I realized I do not practice currently in the cultural foundation my parents promoted for my family. I was raised in a religious home with my parents practicing Pentecostal religious beliefs. Even though...
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