...Heritage Assessment Heritage is who we are, where we come from, it’s our history. Traditionally the word heritage means one back ground or tradition. Each individual’s heritage varies between different cultures and consists of determination of one’s ethnic, religious, and cultural background (Spector, 2009). The heritage assessment tool helps healthcare professionals evaluate someone’s physical, mental, and spiritual beliefs which in turn helps with determining traditional health methods such as health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration. It also helps in opening a pathway for effective communication between the patient and health care provider to understand ones culture, beliefs, as well as their health traditions. The greater the person’s identification with a traditional heritage, the greater number of positive responses they will have on the assessment (Spector, 2009). This paper will compare three heritages Hispanic, African American, and Chinese looking at the difference between health methods and traditions and will also assess the author’s heritage. Health maintenance is how one manages their health by preventing and promoting good health. The Hispanic cultures hold a very strong religious belief. The majority come from a Catholic background and relies heavily on God and prayer. They sometimes view good health as a reward from God and illness as a punishment for wrongdoing. Hispanics are very family oriented going beyond the nuclear family...
Words: 1212 - Pages: 5
...Thank You Julie! Good morning Capt Stancy, Mr. Bevington, Capt Goyet, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this celebration of the Hispanic Heritage Month. It is my distinct honor to speak to you today. Hispanic culture is deeply intertwined with the history of this Nation. We live on the same side of the world with the largest Spanish speaking population due to our proximity to Mexico, Central, South America and the Caribbean. So it is important to recognize the contributions of the Hispanic culture as well as other cultures to celebrate and acknowledge how the history, culture, values and traditions of the United States were and continue to be shaped by the make-up of its ever changing population profile. When I started to think about what I would say, it occurred to me that perhaps I should do a little research and review history instead of presuming I know everything about my heritage. I am glad I did because I learned many facts that challenged my own understanding of history. I want to share some of these facts with you today. On September 1968, Congress authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to proclaim National Hispanic Heritage Week, observed during the week that included Sept. 15 and Sept. 16. The observance was expanded in 1989 by Congress to a month long celebration (Sept. 15 – Oct. 15), America celebrates the culture and traditions of those who trace their roots to Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America and...
Words: 1488 - Pages: 6
...Heritage Assessment: Cultural Differences Jennifer L. Moul Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V March 30, 2014 Heritage Assessment: Cultural Differences Heritage assessment tools are used as a guide to assist in developing plans based on an indivudals cultural assssement. Heritage assessment tools prompt the interviewer to ask questions that pertain to their family’s background such as parent origins, race, relgious beliefs, customs, and practices. Gaining knowledge of an individual’s background will allow a health care professional to build plans that will be achievable. Achieving optimal health requires assessment and treating the individual human being. Reflecting on Jean Watson’s theory around caring, “Theory specifically involves the caring of a person’s mind, body, and soul” (Zerwekh & Claborn, 2009). Watson’s 10 carative factors represent the human caring values, the following factors are essential and necessary to understand and treat the whole-human being: Maintain humanistic view, Promote faith and hope, sensitivity of oneself and others, development of trust, acceptance of feelings positive or negative, systematic approach to problem solving, teaching and learning, create a healing environment, support the gratification of needs, allow for spiritualism. Recognizing the Most Precious and Powerful Source is the Human Being (Edelman, Mandel, & Elizabeth. 2014), defines culture “as an element of ethnicity, refers to integrated patterns of human behavior that...
Words: 1026 - Pages: 5
...E-mail To: shakira@mail.com. From: Rasmus Andersen, Hispanic Heritage Foundation. Date: 8 October 2014 Subject: Aware of the increasing number of hate crimes ________________________________________________________________________ Dear Ms Shakira. I am a young employee of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. My colleagues and I are working on a campaign to make people aware of the increasing number of hate crimes, and what disadvantages the Arizona law has. We have over the last few weeks talked a lot about what would give the best result, and we have found that our best bet would be through an advertisement. We have seen a television program where you talks about your opinion about the Arizona law, and we find you very interesting. We are particularly impressed about your good arguments. We do agree with most of your arguments, and work primarily out of the same arguments as you do. We believe that their great popularity around the world would be able to help us to get our message out to a larger group of people. We think you can be a good role model because many young people look up to you, and your high popularity can help us to attract a lot of positive attention, and therefore would we like to ask you to help us to get our message out to as many people as possible. We are not demanding any financial support from your side, that part takes my colleagues and me. We look forward to hear from you again, and we hope you think it sounds like a...
Words: 279 - Pages: 2
...Heritage Assessment Nurses have been trained to respect the beliefs and cultural choices of others because patient’s cultural beliefs and rituals influence patient care and outcomes (Anderson, 2012). Nurses need to become aware of patients beliefs, values and rituals to ensure competent and safe patient care (Edelman & Greiner, 2010). The heritage assessment is useful because it is an important step in building cultural competency through interviewing the patient and determining the things the patient value and respect most in life (Sankaran, 2007). Heritage assessments give patients an opportunity to express their beliefs, values and rituals. Respect is shown to the patient by respecting their beliefs and rituals as closely as possible without hindering patient care. This paper will discuss the benefits of using a heritage assessment in evaluating the needs of the whole patient, interviews of people from different cultures, identify common health traditions of the three cultures and evaluate how families subscribe to these traditions and practices. Cultural competency involves more than just asking questions, but it opens up the diversity of the patient’s culture. Nurses must become aware of their own cultural biases and focus on the cultural beliefs and values of the patient by performing a heritage assessment (Edelman & Greiner, 2010). This heritage assessment will give the nurse a clearer picture of the patient’s background and in the process will improve the quality of...
Words: 1485 - Pages: 6
...the people, healthcare providers need to respect and acknowledge people’s views in healthcare. The perception of illness and disease and their causes varies by cultures. Healthcare professionals must possess the ability to communicate and understand health behaviors that are influenced by culture. In this essay three families of different origin: Japanese, Filipino, and Hispanic, were interviewed and each explained their beliefs in health maintenance, protection, and restoration of their own health. All cultures approach health care management by their cultures own worldly views. The usefulness of a heritage assessment tool is to identify the needs of a person as a whole. This can be an effective way to gain insight and help determine a course of action most beneficial for that particular person. Part of the assessment tool that is useful in identifying particular characteristics of a person is the origin of birth of the persons’ parents, identifying their ethnicity, which can allow for considerations such as genetic predispositions, and the risks that are associated with them. Another helpful way the heritage assessment tool evaluates a person as a whole, is to take into consideration the importance, or lack thereof, of family members. Having a strong rapport with one’s own family can greatly influence the decisions an individual makes regarding their own personal wellbeing. Certain cultures out of a...
Words: 1497 - Pages: 6
...Influenced by Hispanic Heritage: | | In anything that I decide to whole heartedly pursue in my life, I want to be an inspiration. I want to be a leader and a role model to my peers, but especially to my family and sisters. I want to be the one they look up to, the one they desire to be like through my academic achievements and extra-curricular activities that I have had the privilege to be a part of. My parents come from families that had to sacrifice education in order to provide for their families. My maternal grandmother never experienced any education beyond middle school, she was needed at home to help care for her siblings and forced to take on the role of a mother at a young age. She made sure they were bathed and feed, waking up in the morning to fix their breakfast and get them prepared for school. She had to drop her youngest sibling off at the babysitter’s house every day, so that she could attend to her other motherly duties, such as cleaning the house and grocery shopping. She was not able to go to school and gain a full education; she was forced to give that up so that she could help stabilize her family because her mother could not do it all alone. In the Hispanic heritage, family is first and we do whatever is necessary in order to put our family first and make sure they are cared for. It does not matter the circumstances. If we have to work three jobs in order to provide for our families, then that is what we will do without hesitation. My paternal grandmother...
Words: 608 - Pages: 3
...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 sabador’s in conjunction with traditional medicine practices(Edelman et al., 2014, Chapter 2). Hispanics believe that a person’s health is based on balance of hot and cold and when one gets sick it is because there is too much heat or cold present ("Mexican Cultural Profile," 2014). As indicated by my assessment of this family it was evident that being surrounded by family is important and...
Words: 1014 - Pages: 5
...area. They include Native-American, African-American, Protestant, European, "Cracker", Hispanic-Latino, and Cuban. Because there are so many variations of these cultures choosing just three was difficult, but for my project I will be focusing on our African-American, Hispanic-Latino, and "Cracker" populations. During this project I will address the many and varied differences between these cultures on many different levels including personal or family differences, social differences and educational differences. I expect to gain a greater understanding about these cultures during this process and by gaining this understanding I will be better equipped to combine students from these cultures into a classroom of learners that are able to succeed on all levels of History education. Because I do teach World History having a classroom full of diverse cultures lends itself to a variety of teaching activities and extra curricular learning. Miami-Dade Community College President Eduardo J. Padron. Said it best when he said "Our classrooms are laboratories for cultural diversity and the disciplines are enriched when students contribute various cultural perspectives," It has become increasingly clear that we must get creative in culturally diverse ways in order to pull all of our students into the learning culture in equal ways. I spent several days researching the material that you are about to read. My biggest source of information was the internet, but I also spoke with several other instructors...
Words: 3353 - Pages: 14
...According to the dictionary, a community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. The community in which I live in is about equal in the amount of Hispanic, and African American residents; however, it appears to have fewer Caucasians than both Hispanics and African Americans. In this paper I will consider relations within my community, local government, schools, and workplace. I will also discuss the problems that an in-depth interview with Emmanuel King from King’s Group Home for Children (a local community children’s advocate) and my own personal accounts have made clear. Community relations within my community are positive for all the members in the areas of government, schools, and workplaces with only a few minor issues. Most members in my community do not look like me. I live in a mostly Hispanic and African American communities so most of my neighbors do not look like me. Even though my neighborhood is comprised of mostly Hispanics and African Americans, my community has a great range of Caucasians, African Americans, Asians, Arabs, and Hispanics. The people in my community get along extremely well. When it comes to the working environments in my community everything varies. Because my community is home to the state government as well as the local government and the fact that it is a larger city and home to the state capitol the amount of jobs increases and...
Words: 1601 - Pages: 7
...culture to provide optimal care that promotes wellness (Lipson & Dibble, 2008). Summarization People have diverse beliefs about health, illness, disease, birth and death, which are directed by culture. Heritage assessment is an important step towards building understanding of cultural competency, a phenomenon that recognizes diversity, both in linguistic and cultural adeptness by the health care provider. A person’s culture, beliefs, heritage, and language have a substantial impact both as a patient and a health care provider within the health care system (Spector, 2009). Although only 29 questions were supplied in the heritage assessment tool, the questions cleared a pathway for opening up dialogue about ones beliefs regarding health, illness, spirituality, and family support, which linked personal values to them. In this paper diversity was identified as a key component between the three ethnic groups compared, which were American with subgroups of Irish/German, Hispanic, and Filipino Health and Wellness is at the core of Health Tradition’s but varies according to ones personal cultural heritage. My heritage like many people has subgroups. I am an American born in the U.S. with my descendants from Ireland and Germany. When it comes to health tradition this heritage has played a role in shaping the foundation...
Words: 990 - Pages: 4
...Heritage Assessment Melody Tejada Grand Canyon University: NRS 429V April 17, 2011 Heritage Assessment Throughout the years, people and families from a diverse group of cultures and religions have developed many health traditions and practices based on their culture and heritage. Most people that grow up having followed certain practices continue to do so into adulthood and also pass those traditions down to their children and so on. However, there are also those who break out of the traditions they grew up with and develop health beliefs and practices of their own. As a child growing up in the New York City, I remember being surrounded by my Hispanic cultural background which included a certain number of health traditions and practices. As I became an independent adult and became a registered nurse, I began developing traditions and practices of my own that do not particularly follow the Hispanic culture. In this paper we will review what I was able to identify from completing the heritage assessment tool and we will also compare the findings of my own personal heritage beliefs to those of two other cultures from different families I have spoken to from the Chinese and Caucasian cultures. We will address how these cultures commonly view health practices and also will discuss different ways in which they maintain, protect and restore their health. Culture can shape a person’s concept of disease and treatment, and at times can even affect the way they view...
Words: 1205 - Pages: 5
...Race and Your Community ETH/125 Race and Your Community I live in a small rural town in Northwest Texas. The community is primarily comprised of Hispanic Americans that emigrated from Mexico. Generations of these families exist, the majority of them do not speak English and are migrant workers in the agriculture industry. Interacting within the community can be challenging at times, and finding employment without being bilingual in next to impossible. The community leaders are mainly Hispanic American as well, seeing as how it is only 16% Caucasian. This area is different from the majority of the population, even within Texas. Caucasians are the minority here, and we are treated like it! I pray this is a learning/teaching experience for my sons of how to properly treat others, like you would like to be treated. My family moved to this area from Golden, a small suburb of Denver, Colorado. It has been a culture shock to say the least. Coming from a mountainous area to flat and baron is less than exciting or fulfilling. The area is extremely depressing, with little work or recreation. The housing is cheap, that is truly the one positive of living here. The people are unfriendly, and most cannot communicate with you at all. It is challenging to come from an English speaking city where being bilingual is a choice, to a small rural town where being bilingual is a necessity. Obviously, I do not plan to live...
Words: 1400 - Pages: 6
...identity. She was born in Guatemala but has lived in America since she was three years old. In the beginning she was somewhat embarrassed by her Hispanic heritage. Tanya felt inferior to the white people because of how she looked and because of her last name. The tone of the essay was a serious and desperate cry for help. It seemed she was speaking to anyone who could listen and relate to her. Tanya wrote from her point of view and how she felt like a “gringa” trapped in a Latina girl’s body. Tone Tanya had been through the whole situation of taking tutoring to help her develop her Spanish speaking a half dozen times already. She had become frustrated and did not know where she belonged in society. She viewed herself inferior to the others in her class and wanted others to pretend she was a white girl wanting to learn Spanish. She was struggling with her identity and spent a lot of time and money trying to find her true self. You can’t blame her for feeling that way. She saw the type of treatment her parents received when she was a child enrolling in school. All she wanted was a place in society. Audience The primary audience Tanya was speaking to would be anyone in the same situation as she was. It could be another person of Hispanic descent or any other race trying to learn a new language and accept their heritage. In the beginning she felt like she was low on the totem pole because she was considered Mexican. Towards the end of the essay she had realized...
Words: 699 - Pages: 3
...Heritage Assessment Health Tradition and Cultural Comparison Sharon Nodine Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V March 20, 2016 “A growing realization that the United States is not a ‘melting pot’ in which immigrants assimilate into the mainstream culture, but a country of many cultures has led to a growing appreciation of different ethno-cultural groups” (EuroMed Info, n.d.). The Heritage Tool and it’s five competencies is designed to provide a framework for nurses to gain insight of the cultural practices of patients in order to provide culturally competent care that will result in better health outcomes (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2008). The Hispanic-American Assessment “Latinos comprise nearly 16 percent of the U.S. population, and this proportion is anticipated to increase to 30 percent by 2050” (Juckett, 2013). He continues to say, barriers to care have resulted in striking disparities in quality of health care for these patients. These barriers include language, lack of insurance, different cultural beliefs, and in some cases, illegal immigration status, mistrust, and illiteracy. The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services address these concerns with recommendations for culturally competent care, language services, and organizational support. Latinos have disproportionately higher rates...
Words: 1718 - Pages: 7
