Journal of cultural diversity
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Social inequalities in the United States resulted in negative health outcomes for the African Americans. Their stressful living conditions of poverty, discrimination, racism, abuse and rejection from American society contribute to their negative health outcomes. The lifestyles of African Americans have been influenced by poverty and prior injustices, which have molded their worldview of health and illness. ⋯ This paper is an analytical review of the literature addressing social inequalities impacting on health inequalities of African Americans resulting in health disparities. Policy changes are propose by implementing transformation development and community empowerment models as frameworks for community/public health nurses in guiding African American communities with addressing health disparities. These models empower members of the community to participate in a collaborative effort in making political and social changes to improve their overall health outcomes.
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Transcultural nursing is an essential aspect of healthcare today. The ever-increasing multicultural population in the United States poses a significant challenge to nurses providing individualized and holistic care to their patients. This requires nurses to recognize and appreciate cultural differences in healthcare values, beliefs, and customs. ⋯ It identifies factors that define transcultural nursing and analyzes methods to promote culturally competent nursing care. The need for transcultural nursing will continue to be an important aspect in healthcare. Additional nursing research is needed to promote transcultural nursing.
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The purpose of this article is to inform the reader that a commonality in grief and bereavement exists even though it is highly individualized. Health care providers and consumers of health care should realize and understand the potential for bias and miscommunication when there is delivery of care from non-similar cultures. Grief and bereavement are two of many issues existing in the health care delivery system which can result in substandard delivery of care as a result of cultural insensitivity and cultural incompetence.
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This review of minority health describes the existing health disparities, the barriers to healthcare access and utilization, the role of three social determinants of health [i.e., (1) socioeconomic status, (2) education, and (3) stress and/or depression], the existing public-policies; and a health literacy strategy addressing social determinants of health to reduce disparities and improve outcomes in African-American women undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI). Insurance, geography, facility-types, physician referral-bias, and cultural-differences pose as potential significant barriers to healthcare access and utilization. Likewise, lower socioeconomic-status, lack of education, and higher stress and/or depression is associated with adverse health-outcomes for this population. Although the elimination of health disparities is a national priority, comprehensive educational approaches focusing on cross-cultural communication, language barriers, cultural-sensitivity, and cultural-competence are needed.
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To meet the predicted deficit of more than 1 million nurses by 2020, traditional nursing recruitment must target previously un-recruited populations, as well as a culturally diversified workforce to include variations in age, ethnicity, gender, life style, national origin, and sexual orientations. As diversity increases, differences must be bridged to acculturate new nurses to recognize and identify with a shared nursing ideology and culture. ⋯ Following an intervention integrating the CPNVs into academic education, students affirmed the usefulness of this approach describing that the integration of the core values created a shared culture of professional nursing and deepened their commitment to the profession. Incorporating the CPNVs provided a promising approach that bridged the cultural chasm of a highly diverse student population and the profession of nursing by creating a shared professional culture across the myriad differences.