Health Perspectives (Cultural Empowerment).
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I chose to deal with African Americans as a minority group from my long session project for this class. Several cultural empowerments affect the health status of this specific group of people in the country. For instance, the African American race possesses a considerable diversification of culturally attached beliefs to their understandings. These beliefs are where African American people acquire their senses and strengths of belonging. These various forms of cultural empowerment have enabled them to navigate indifferent situations that come their way, especially when dealing with racism because of their skin color, beliefs, and how they act.
Among the cultural empowerment aspects demonstrated by the African Americans, religion and spirituality play a significant role. These two key factors also offer them some room for comfort, especially the ailing family members, in my case, those diagnosed with diabetes. Additionally, being familiar with one’s culture, expectations, and values related to the culture offer African Americans a better feeling of coverage (Purcell & Cutchen, 2013).
How the PEN-3 model three factors affect the African American group within the dimension of Cultural Empowerment
PEN-3 model was manlily established to promote health via the promotion of healthy behaviors and safe lifestyles. It also focuses on various interventions to prevent diseases, especially among the minority ethnic group found in the United States of America. This PEN-3 model is a cultural framework that creates interventions and offers guidelines, especially to the African countries, to promote their health status. The PEN-3 model’s dimension on culture and empowerment shows three major factors to focus on that directly affect the African American group. These factors include; the perceptions, enablers, and nurturers (Purcell & Cutchen, 2013).
The healthcare system of the country often neglects the essential aspects of various ethnic groups. Instead, the healthcare system focuses on personal improvement, making it mandatory to elaborate on cultural beliefs and heritage rather than prevent diseases.
Perceptions
The term perception refers to individual interpretations of a situation. In our case, perception refers to one’s understanding of diabetes disease. A person having their perceptions means that they form their attitude that depends on their beliefs, knowledge, family opinions, and values. For our chosen ethnic group, a person diagnosed or suffering from diabetes is often seen as a vulnerable and weak person who needs assistance (Lisa Marie, 2018. These people are perceived as those who need help with their self-care and are sometimes considered for cultural education and support to better their living ways.
Support comes with various thoughts from the community members. People with diabetes sometimes lead to a rise in misconceptions from the community members. People develop different theories about the case and, in return, builds pressure on the affected people. For instance, if these patients feel a little bit better in a day, most people mistake it for health stability and think that those patients are in a position to take care of themselves. If these patients deteriorate and need health assistance the following day, people might feel like these patients need a full-time close watching, depending on how severe the condition turns out. This case is a matter of perceptions that differ from one person to another, even from the care providers or the patients themselves.
Enablers
Enablers are the people or other stuff that opens a way for something to happen, either consciously or subconsciously. From the cultural perspective, a patient can be empowered through an enabling culture assistance system that understands their pains and supports their needs to rely on other people for assistance (Watson-Singleton et al., 2019). For diabetic patients of African American ethnicity, a cultural enabler can significantly negatively affect their health. They lack medical competence or advancements in the country’s healthcare system to offer them the necessary equipment for treatment.
Culturally, there are several stigmas related to chronic illnesses. For example, patients are significantly enabled by religious and spiritual practices that are intense, like those that rebuke medicine or any other medication forms to manage a health condition. These beliefs lead to severe consequences in the patients’ health and sometimes destroy the relationship between the healthcare provider and the patients.
Nurturers
Nurturer refers to the extent to which various beliefs and actions are mediated, natured, and influenced by different families, friends, and communities that mostly have an existing influence on healthcare. Nurtures make enablers and other family members an essential part of the management and disease prevention process. It is essential because of the patients’ needs to identify themselves with their loved ones (Lisa Marie, 2018). For cultural identity, especially among African Americans, education on diabetes is necessary.
Family-focused intervention is the best way to handle the issue. For instance, patients with diabetes mostly listen to the advice from other African American counterparts who mostly believe in traditional spiritual enlightenment and healing rather than those who believe in modern medication that can significantly affect the type of care the patients get. It can also break their trust in a doctor’s assistance to make them feel better.
References
Lisa Marie, P. (2018). Running head: PEN-3 Model Cultural Framework for Health Intervention and Prevention. On J Neur & Br Disord, 1(5).
Purcell, N., & Cutchen, L. (2013). Diabetes self-management education for African Americans: using the PEN-3 model to assess needs. American Journal of Health Education, 44(4), 203-212.
Watson-Singleton, N. N., Black, A. R., & Spivey, B. N. (2019). Recommendations for a culturally-responsive mindfulness-based intervention for African Americans. Complementary therapies in clinical practice, 34, 132-138.
Health Perspectives (Cultural Empowerment).
Question
Continuing with the same cultural group and health issue for the Session Long Project that you began in Module 1, write a paper to address the following:
Describe the Cultural Empowerment of the group you chose. Specifically address how each of the PEN-3 model’s three factors within the dimension of cultural empowerment applies to your group, and provide examples.
Use subheadings to clearly show that you have addressed each of the three factors. Support your discussion with references from scholarly and professional references (not just your opinion).
Length: 2-3 pages, excluding the cover page and the reference list.
Health Perspectives (Cultural Empowerment).