Latinos and the Challenges to Culturally Sensitive Care

Culturally Sensitive Care for Latinos

Patricia T.G., (2015).

The presenter gives a succinct introduction that makes her connect with the audience, she gives her personal challenges that are connected to the presentation like the way the topic is large and inability to talk less as is required, but in the same breath gives the immediate solution and hope in having a good and informative presentation on the issue of culturally sensitive care to the Latinos. She also indicates that there would be printed papers as resources that would give further clarifications and details for all those who would be interested at the end of the session.

The presenter first highlights the topic and emphasizes on the huge number of Latinos in America, which runs into 35.3 million which makes this topic a central and significant topic to talk about since the number of Latinos is increasing with time. She further supports the significance of the topic by giving the projections of 2050 when Latinos will be expected to be 24.4% of the American population. The presenter is positive that the projection could be right since the Latinos love to have babies hence the significance of the provision of culturally sensitive care to such a huge population that have their own values that they uphold, apart from the shared values with other Americans. The health and the mental health of this population will have a significant impact on the healthcare system within America in the near future.

The traditional American culture is depicted to have little effect on the healthcare choices and direction but the other cultures which include the Latinos culture are seen to significantly influence the healthcare choices and access. These cultures are not centered on superstitious activities alone but also on family setting, religious considerations, cultural values like respect and the ethics like hard work among the Latinos. The Latinos are also depicted to have little faith in institutions and as a people who value their language as part of their cultural identity, hence would perpetuate the same through generations.

In order to understand the state and condition of Latinos, the presenter gives the audience reasons why the Latinos are in America in the first place, which include unemployment, poverty, the lack of safety in their mother country, the disasters that have struck Colombia and other regions as well as the lure for better education in the U.S.A. The quest for new life in the U.S. means abandoning a whole lifestyle behind, it also involves a lot of costs to cross the border and there are risks associated with the whole migration into the U.S. Once the Latinos land in the U.S., they are faced with further challenges of language barriers, culture shock, transportation crisis, housing problems, health access issues, problem of unemployment, discrimination and problem in accessing education. The difficulty in access to education results in continued language barrier, higher teen pregnancy and inability to continue into college life. These above challenges have occasioned unprecedented changes in family structures where more Latinos are not marrying any more, the gender roles are significantly changing, the communication between the elderly and the youth is tampered with, the dying extended family support and the decreasing religious adherence. The continued acculturation on the Latino families means there is increase in intergenerational conflict and lesser family monitoring since both parents whoa re supposed to be mentoring the children are out working to provide for their families. The younger generation seems top be able to adapt faster to these effects of acculturation than the elderly.

It is also shown that the Latinos have 33.4% of its total population uninsured, which is deemed the highest in the U.S. It is also indicated that the Latinos have high cases of children obesity, high diabetes incidences, higher teen pregnancy cases, higher rates of STIs and higher adolescent depression cases. The presenter however indicates that there is hope since there are support councils for the children and health councils that help in stabilizing the healthcare access to the Latinos. She also highlights the central role played by the Latino healthcare community activities to attempt to reverse the effects of the lack of health system the fits the Latinos.

The presenter frequently draws experiences and examples from her personal life and her extended family values as well as close friends and patients in order to give explanations that are easily understandable by the listeners. This plays a central role in keeping the attention of the audience on her as well as wining the confidence and empathy of the audience in her knowledge about the topic at hand.

At the end of the presentation, the presenter gave time for questions from the audience and it is instrumental to note that she was keen and showed attention and concertation on the members of audience that were asking questions. This encouraged more people to feel part of the discussion and ask more questions; an interactive communication process was established.