Leveraging Culture to Address Health Inequalities Examples from Native Communities: Workshop Summary (2013) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Culture as a Social Determinant of Health
2 Culture as a Social Determinant of Health
Pages 5-12
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 5... ...
It has produced new diagnostic technologies, medications, and health care delivery systems. The reductionist approach at the center of the model has been a foundational methodology for gaining new knowledge.
|
From page 6... ...
In indigenous communities, the broader determinants of health include cultural continuity, responses to colonialism, and responses to the "new colonialism" -- globalization -- which he described as seeking reduced diversity because it is cheaper to provide goods and services to a uniform market. These broader determinants also include the relationship of indigenous people to their territories and former territories.
|
From page 7... ...
If health care institutions are not attuned to the culture of their patients, outcomes for both patients and institutions can be negative. If patients are noncompliant or reluctant to visit health facilities, they can become alienated from the health care system, and health care providers can become demoralized.
|
From page 8... ...
Further along the spectrum, cultural competence describes a situation in which services are provided in ways that are as congruent as possible with the culture of the client being served. The ultimate goal of the provision of health care services is cultural safety, said Knibb-Lamouche.
|
From page 9... ...
The Relationship to the Land Native Americans have a fundamentally different relationship with their land and territories than do other minority groups in Canada and the United States, said Knibb-Lamouche. The dispossession of land and the expropriation of resources destroyed traditional economies and undermined identity, spirituality, language, and culture.
|
From page 10... ...
Healing requires traditional practices, spiritual values, indigenous knowledge, and culture and, importantly, depends on the idea that the health and well-being of individuals, families, communities, and nations require the restoration of balance. Second, the training of health care providers should emphasize cultural competence in the short term.
|
From page 11... ...
Language is also important in preserving culture and using culture to improve health. Knibb-Lamouche's college is working on a medical dictionary in the Cree language to explain medical information to the elders, which "would increase their compliance with interventions exponentially." Leilani Siaki, a cardiology nurse at Madigan Army Hospital, called attention to the difficulties of getting institutional review boards to approve research using methods appropriate for the Native American groups being studied.
|
From page 12... ...
Culturally safe care would incorporate indigenous knowledge not by subsuming it into Western knowledge but by acknowledging that traditional methods are available in conjunction with Western medicine. Culturally safe care is "a moving target that we can always be striving toward." Cultural humility could serve as a codicil on the Hippocratic Oath: "Instead of ‘First, do no harm,' it would be ‘First, stop being a jerk.'" -- James Knibb-Lamouche
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.