Culture
and Health
"But
if everyone is genetically humming the same notes, why do people from different cultures and
nations sing different melodies?"
"Why
do people from various cultures view health and illness differently?"
"What
role does culture play in people's expectations of professional nurses and nursing?"
Margaret M. Andrews, Ph.D., R.N. C.T.N. in Transcultural
Nursing: concepts, theories, research & practice (xvi, 2002.)
Transcultural nursing and
Madeleine Leininger (Leininger & McFarland, 2002)
History of transcultural
nursing:
Madeleine
Leininger envisioned transcultural nursing in the 1950s as a formal and
essential study and practice. There
was a critical need to prepare nurses in education and research needed to care
for for the culturally different, neglected and vulnerable cultures and
subcultures.
She
prepared herself with a master's degree in nursing and a Ph.D. in cultural and
social anthropology. Dr.
Leininger did ethnographic research with the Gadsup of the Eastern Highlands of
New Guinea in the 1960s. During this time, Dr. Leininger developed her theory
of Culture Care Diversity and
Universalityand the ethnonursing research method.
A major shift in the history of
nursing, she
wrote the first qualitative nursing research book in 1985. Dr. Leininger has
studied 15 other Western and non-Western cultures using the Culture Care theory
and the ethnonursing research method.
"Today and in the future,
cultures have the human rights to have their cultural values, beliefs, and
needs respected, understood, and appropriately used within any caring or curing
process..." M. Leininger (p.6, 2002)
Transcultural nursing is a formal area of study and practice
focused on
comparative human-care (caring) differences and similarities
of the beliefs,
values and patterned lifeways of cultures
to provide
culturally conguent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people.
(Leininger&
McFarland, 2002)
Global factors influencing the need for transcultural nursing:
- increased migration worldwide
- worldwide increases and demands in health
technologies, internet and electronic communications, bringing people
closer together virtually or physically
- increase in the number of health care
professionals from other cultures and to other cultures
- rise in cultural identities with health care
consumers expecting that their beliefs, values and lifeways be respected
- marked increase in moral and ethical cultural
concerns between cultures
- increased use of complementary or alternative
medicines or therapies
- major shift in Western cultures from hospital to
community-based health care related to concern with increasing health-care
costs
- a growing gap between culture of the poor and the
cultures of the rich showing a need for social justice and equal rights in
health care
- increase in cultural and ethnic clashes and
violence worldwide, influencing the health, survival, and death of people
of diverse cultures.
- increased awareness that health anc culture
cannot be divorced from the broader socio-economic-political context in
which the individual is situated
Some myths about transcultural nursing:
"Common
sense and a smile are all that is needed to care for other cultures."
Why this is a
myth: Common sense and smile is generally helpful in this American/Western
culture, but common sense and a smile may mean different things in other
cultures.
"Anybody
can teach culturally competent care."
Why this is a
myth: Transcultural nursing is complex and requires diligent and extensive
study in the theory and methods. Unprepared staff teaching transcultural
nursing without graduate preparation in the theory and methods is educationally
unsound and clinically unsafe (p. 33).
"Good
medical and nursing psychosocial assessment will tell you everything you need
to know about a client."
Why this is a
myth: The human is a being who is embedded in a cultural context that
influences his/her wellness and illness patterns and beliefs about caring
modalities. Holistic culture care assessments are imperative to provide
culturally congruent care.
"Having
knowledge and experience and interaction with different cultures is sufficient
in knowing how to take care of them."
Why this is a
myth: Reflective experience needs to be grounded in ethnographically derived
holding knowledge, not just on hunches and personal generalizations.
Aug. 17, 2004 :
Most
People of Color are Lactose Intolerant (from diversityinc.com)
As many as 75 percent of all African Americans and
Native Americans, 90
percent of Asian
Americans, and 51 percent of the Latino population are
lactose intolerant, according to the National Digestive Diseases Information
Clearinghouse.
Want to
Find Out More? Read 'Got
Milk?' Ads: Culturally Competent or Culturally Insensitive? .
Notes from Exploring Medical Anthropology
(Joralemon, 1999):
This book is an introduction to medical anthropology and discusses
the following points:
- Every aspect of the person's experience of
illness is shaped by the cultural frameworks of both the sufferer and the
helper
- The society's economic and political structures
play a critical role in the health risks and treatments that are available
- Ethnography provides the foundation for a
holistic understandiing of sickness and healing
- Medical anthropology can play an active role in
alleviating human suffering.
