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Heritage Assessment

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Heritage Assessment
Heritage Assessment

Introduction

Over the past 20 years a significant social movement in America has amplified public awareness toward the promotion of health and disease prevention, known as Healthy People 2000 and 2010. It has been beneficial in changing the focus of health care from a reactive standpoint to a proactive one, which endorses national health and prevention of disease (Edelmam & Mandle, 2010). However delivery of health care objectives is not enough. Health providers must recognize and incorporate cultural group patterns, and variations within that 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 of the health traditions that I employ and pass on to my children. Independence



References: Edelman, C., & Mandle, C. L. (2010). Health Promotion Throughout the Life Span (7thed.). St. Louis: Mosby. Healthy People 2010. http://www.healthypeople.gov/ Lipson, J. G., & Dibble. S. L. (2008). Culture & Clinical Care. UCSF Nursing Press Spector, R. E. (2009). Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Health.

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