Select a culture that is different from your own and research the culture’s views of medical care

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

As the medical assistant begins an encounter with a patient, awareness of cultural differences and other problems that may inhibit communication is important. Any number of situations may arise that the medical assistant must be prepared to address.

Different cultures may have distinctive views on medicine and medical procedures. Patients from different cultures may react differently to procedures in the medical office. The medical assistant will overcome major obstacles if he or she knows that the patient does not speak English as a first language, or if the patient is from a culture in which the female patient does not disrobe for a male physician.

In this assignment you will do the following:

  • Select a culture that is different from your own and research the culture’s views of medical care.
  • Write a four-page (minimum) paper, comparing and contrasting your culture’s views on medical care to the culture’s views you selected.
  • Cite a minimum of two sources substantiating the views. All sources must be cited on a bibliography page.

Organize the paper as follows:

Section 1 –Give an overview about how heredity, culture, and environment can all influence patient behavior in the medical office. Then focus on culture and state which culture you selected to research and why. List the culture’s overall view of healthcare.

Section 2 –Compare and contrast the views of your chosen culture regarding healthcare to your own culture’s views. You should have a minimum of four different viewpoints/topics you compare and contrast.

Section 3 –Express your opinion about why a medical assistant should adapt to a patient’s individualized needs based on your research of a different culture’s views of health care. Identify how, as a medical assistant, you could adjust your interpersonal communication techniques to demonstrate sensitivity to other’s cultural beliefs.

DELIVERABLES

Complete a 4-page (minimum) typed paper. Address the assigned topic and content. Paper must have a bibliography page to cite reference sources (the bibliography page is not counted toward the 4 pages). Resources must be listed using APA guidelines.

Grammar, spelling and the overall professional appearance of the paper will be evaluated in addition to the content. Paper format:

PLS CAN I HAVE THE CITES UNDERNEATH THE FOUR PAGES.

Impact of temperature on belowground soil decomposition

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It depends upon what grading scale we are using when comparing whether or not one society is better than another. Is it technological advancement we are comparing? Is it health and longevity we are comparing? Or, is it the least environmental impact we are comparing? Hunter-gatherer societies definitely lived the most minimally. Since they were constantly on the move, they did not settle anywhere long enough to develop some type of long-lasting effect. They were the least technologically advanced and the longevity was short because of danger from wild animals and disease. The hunter-gatherer on the other hand was definitely the least imposing on the environment with a little to none footprint. Most due to the fact they didn’t use non-renewable resources or technology.

The agricultural society was more technologically advanced than hunter-gatherers by developing methods of farming. They gained continuity by remaining in one place, learning how to live off of the land over-and-over again. The agricultural society lived a healthy life by eating what they grew, most definitely healthier than today’s poison we are eating.

The switch to the urban society is a huge change from the hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies. Society changed to a service focused lifestyle. The technology we have today is far more advanced than the previous two. Some can argue that our health is worse off than before due to the poisoning food and pollution, but our longevity is higher because of the rise of modern medicine.

 

It’s hard to determine which society is better and whether or not the changes were good. Each society had advantages over the other.

Feedback# 1:

 

2.

It was good in someways and bad. Most of our history we supported ourselves by hunting and gathering; we hunted wild animals and foraged for wild plants. Since no food is grown and little is stored, there’s a struggle that starts anew each day to find wild foods and avoid starving. Change started taking place when in different parts of the world people began to domesticate plants and animals. The agricultural revolution spread. Hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. Dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Agriculture encouraged people to come together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. Epidemics couldn’t take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly changed camp. Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another downside to humanity, deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non producing elite set itself above the disease ridden masses. Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest lasting life style in human history. We’re still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has led us into. Urban societies have grown from people leaving the farms to going into the cities to work. Which raises the population growth which raises the level of consumption.

Feedback # 2:

3.

Topic: Impact of temperature on belowground soil decomposition

 

This current event is based on how earth’s soils store four times more carbon than the atmosphere and  how small changes in soil carbon storage can have a big effect on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations

 

The effects of warming on soil carbon storage are poorly quantified because it is difficult to assess how temperature change impacts processes below the soil surface. However, the temperature gradient used in this study provides an ideal study system for measuring ecosystem responses to warming over long periods of time. While soil carbon storage and turnover was insensitive to warming, the decomposition of coarse wood and plant growth did increase, which means that the capacity of tropical ecosystems to retain carbon will depend on the balance of changes within each ecosystem. Climate warming will continue with the addition of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere due to human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, and  land-use clearing.

 

USDA Forest Service – Pacific Southwest Research Station. “Impact of temperature on belowground soil decomposition.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 September 2014. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140923142731.htm.

What Are the Leading Health Indicators?

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What Is Healthy People?

Healthy People 2020 provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans.. For 3 decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to:

  • Encourage collaborations across communities and sectors.
  • Empower individuals toward making informed health decisions.
  • Measure the impact of prevention activities

It can be used by many different people, states, communities, professional organizations, and others to help them develop programs to improve health.

Healthy People 2020 continues in this tradition with the launch on December 2, 2010 of its ambitious, yet achievable, 10-year agenda for improving the Nation’s health. Healthy People 2020 is the result of a multiyear process that reflects input from a diverse group of individuals and organizations.

 

What Are the Leading Health Indicators?

 

Healthy People 2020 provides a comprehensive set of 10-year, national goals and objectives for improving the health of all Americans. Healthy People 2020 contains 42 topic areas with nearly 600 objectives (with others still evolving), which encompass 1,200 measures. A smaller set of Healthy People 2020 objectives, called Leading Health Indicators, has been selected to communicate high-priority health issues and actions that can be taken to address them

. The Leading Health Indicators are composed of 26 indicators organized under 12 topics. The Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators are:

  1. Access to Health Services                                  7.  Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity

 

  1. Clinical Preventive Services                                  8.  Oral Health

 

 

  1. Environmental Quality                                           9.  Reproductive and Sexual Health

 

  1. Injury and Violence                                                10.  Social Determinants

 

  1. Maternal, Infant, and Child Health                       11. Substance Abuse

 

  1. Mental Health                                             .      12. Tobacco

 

 

 

 

http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/default.aspx

How are Healthy People 2020 standards used?

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Section B: Healthy People 2010

 

The Healthy People 2020 initiative is a national approach that identifies high priority health issues and establishes objectives to reduce the impact of these public health threats. To understand the significance of data on your own community, you have to be able to compare it to another standard. The questions in this section ask you about other standards that can be used.

 

 

Questions:

  1. How are Healthy People 2020 standards used? What are advantages and disadvantages to applying them at a local community level? (Note: you may use the Healthy People 2010 standards if the 2020 standards are not reported.)

 

  1. What other standards (national, state, or local) can be used?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section C: Health Indicators

 

For this exercise, you will use an indicator approach to develop a community health assessment. A community health assessment involves three-step feedback loop.

 

The first step in such an assessment involves identifying important health indicators. The second step involves matching those indicators with available data. In the third step, standards such as those explored in Section B are applied to the data gathered in the first two steps to transform it into useful information about health needs of the population.

 

Health indicators are measurable health outcomes, such as death rate, insurance coverage measures, immunization rates, or other data items that are relevant to the health of a community. Indicators are thoughtfully selected data points that provide useful information about the health of a community.

 

Note that each indicator should be:

  1. An important health problem.
  2. Prevalent or common in the community of interest.
  3. Measurable on a community or population basis. There should be population data on a local level that is easily available—this cannot be collected from health facilities or providers because these data sources do not apply to the entire community.
  4. Ideally, because we want to use a limited number of indicators, the indicator should not be redundant—not measure the same thing—as another chosen indicator.

 

To organize indicators, it is helpful to identify major areas of focus. For this case, we will refer to these broad categories of public health concerns as domains. Please refer to Table 1 below for examples of domains. For each domain, an example of an indicator is provided.

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1: List of Domains to Assist Developing a Community Health Assessment

 

Domain: Example of an Indicator:
Communicable Diseases(including Sexually Transmitted Diseases) Incidence of Gonorrhea
Chronic Diseases (including Cancer) Incidence of Diabetes
Injury and Violence Homicide rate
Maternal and Child Health Childhood immunization rate
Environmental Health Rates of Lead Poisoning
Access to Health Care Rates of Uninsured

 

 

Question:

 

  1. How you would obtain data for these indicators. What sources might you use? Select 2 of the indicators above and provide specific sources of information on them (including URLs) for your own community or state.