Kyler G. Merrill
Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V
01/18/2015
Heritage Assessment Tool Today in society there are many diverse culture and ethnic backgrounds, each with their own habits, traditions, preferences, and of these includes health. Different needs of the whole person should be evaluated in detail. This paper will discuss results from three different cultures through the interviewing of them using the Heritage Assessment Tool. It will also review, compare, and address health traditions between the cultures as well as identify common health traditions based on cultural heritage. The purpose is to evaluate and discuss how families subscribe to these traditions/practices, address health maintenance, health protection, and health restoration according to the assessment.
Why Heritage Assessment? One method for determining an individuals or groups needs is to use some type of tool in order to complete the assessment. Over 20 years ago an assessment tool was used in order to promote public health and awareness ("Heritage Assessment Tool | Researchomatic," n.d.). The name later became known as “Healthy People 2000 and 2010” and 2020 is soon to come ("Heritage Assessment Tool | Researchomatic," n.d.). The tool contains twenty-nine different and varying questions to obtain detail of birth, siblings, immigration, religion, school, ethnic activities/cuisine and other topics. The usefulness of applying a heritage assessment is because it enables the research to identify how “Different people have different beliefs regarding health, sickness, infection, virus, birth as well as death. All these different beliefs regarding health direct the various forms of culture. Therefore, the assessment of heritage is a significant step in order to build better understanding of cultural capability” ("Heritage Assessment Tool | Researchomatic," n.d. , p. 1).
Health Maintenance, Health Protection, and Health Restoration Many traditional
References: Giger, J.N. and Davidhizar, R.E. Transcultural Nursing Assessment and Intervention, 2nd ed. St. Louis: Mosby, 1995. Heritage Assessment Tool | Researchomatic. (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://www.researchomatic.com/Heritage-Assessment-Tool-104596.html