Culture and Health
Culture is a term used to refer to a pattern of customs, ideas, and behaviors that are shared by a specific group of people or community. In essence, culture is shared values and norms among a group of people or society. Culture plays an important role in how people view and interact with their surrounding world. It shapes peoples attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions regarding the world and the surrounding environment. Given its role in shaping peoples attitudes, views, and behaviors, culture plays a significant role in health and wellbeing. Culture influences peoples attitudes and behaviors relating to their health and wellbeing. Therefore, cultural awareness is an important component in healthcare delivery processes. This paper examines the role of culture in healthcare based on a case study of an individual from a different culture other than my own.
The Individuals Cultural Background
To examine the role of culture in health, an individual with a Hispanic cultural background was interviewed. I first met the interviewee at a summer job in 2021 at a restaurant in Washington, DC where I served as a waiter and she bused tables. We are the same age and she is from El Salvador. The interviewee came to the United States to join her mother in 2016 when she was 15 years old. She is Hispanic and speaks some English. While the interviewee could not describe her culture, she stated that she lived in a poor area in El Salvador that was plagued with gangs, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and sex abuse. She currently lives in a section of DC with a large Spanish-speaking population. She resides in an apartment building with her mother, grandmother, aunt, 3 siblings, a niece, and her son. She stated that her mother and grandmother work hard cleaning houses and...
She stated they all need to lose weight because they are
overweight. The interviewee has suffered with
diabetes since she had her son. She says she needs a physical health assessment but is waiting to get
health insurance as she failed to renew her government-issued insurance. Her neighborhood is known for
gun violence. Gang members killed her father in El Salvador when she was 10. Her mother left her in El Salvador with her grandmother when she and her younger siblings immigrated to the US in 2011. She has a 3-year-old son. The interviewee is a high school dropout, but currently studying...
…her own home. My
parents and sister are college-educated. I am from an
African American culture, which is significantly different from the Hispanic culture. There are some similarities and differences between the African American culture and the Hispanic culture.
Some of the similarities between these two cultures in relation to health include stronger social networks, social disadvantages, and positive attitudes regarding health and healthcare delivery. Strong family connectedness is quite common in the African American culture, which implies it is a collectivist culture like the Hispanic culture. Positive attitudes towards health implies that African Americans have a positive outlook of health and medicine. However, some of the differences between the two cultures include the fact that African Americans are seemingly more educated than Hispanics. Additionally, Hispanics have poor health-seeking behaviors compared to African Americans. These behaviors are brought about by the lack of health coverage, lifestyle factors, and poor socio-economic status.
In conclusion, it is evident that cultural factors play an important role in the health and wellbeing of populations. While some cultures are relatively similar, they are characterized by different factors that shape peoples attitudes, values, and meanings relating to health. Hispanics and African Americans have specific aspects of their cultures that affect their health and wellbeing despite being from…
