Cultural Assessment in Community or Public Health

¶ … cultural assessment in community or public health care with vulnerable populations? Explain.

I feel that it is expedient to include a cultural assessment in community or public health care with vulnerable populations. The very fact that the population is considered vulnerable suggests that there will be dangers in making assumptions about the patient's health care. Moreover, it is well established that cultural background can have a tremendous impact on health care choices for the individual. Decisions that may seem counter-intuitive or misguided to a health care professional may be much easier to understand if the professional completes a cultural assessment. Knowing the potential conflicts between the population's culture and the dominant culture can help a nurse prepare to deal with potential problems.

However, it is important to keep in mind that while it might be expedient to do a cultural assessment when dealing with vulnerable populations, that does not mean that it is expedient to do a cultural assessment on each individual member of the targeted population. Instead, one can learn about the population as a whole. Looking at several different factors of culture, there are a few that one can expect to impact health care provisions. First, language barriers can present a problem, even if the patient has mastery of the English language because of the use of colloquial speech. Nonverbal communication varies tremendously between cultures, so that understanding these differences can help nurses communicate respectfully and understand whether they are being treated with respect. Cultural norms help dictate personal space expectations, which can be an important element of bedside manner. Furthermore, different cultural norms dictate different social structures (such as subservience to a spouse), and understanding those norms can help a nurse provide care to the patient. Finally, different cultures have different biological markers and different health risk factors; understanding those differences is critical for a nurse.

2) How does the nurse's knowledge of the community relate to evidence-based practice? Why is it important?

The nurse's knowledge of the community relates to evidence-based practice because evidence-based practice requires nurses to use the best available evidence and their clinical expertise to help treat health issues. Evidence-based practice requires the nurse to identify relevant research and apply the necessary research to tackle an issue. Many people may believe that evidence-based practice, because it emphasizes quantitative studies over qualitative studies, is not linked to knowledge of a community. However, real knowledge of a community is going to be based on quantitative information, rather than simply stereotypical assumptions about a community. It is one thing for someone to have the belief or gut feeling that a certain population has a higher incidence of a health problem than other populations; it is another thing to understand how much greater the risk is for a target population and whether there is any research suggesting why that population is at a higher risk than other populations. For example, knowing that African-Americans have greater risks of certain diseases can improve health care provision to that community.