CLAS Standards - Essay Example

"CLAS Standards" is a wonderful example of a paper on social and family issues. Many African Americans do not have enough trust in the healthcare system and, therefore, it will be in the overall interest of any program’s effective implementation, to garner the support of well-known community members, like faith leaders, health educators, and local celebrities, etc in health education programs. A peer-to-peer approach also will encourage African American males to partake in health intervention actions. This segment is more likely to speak regarding their health or about blood pressure screening as a group than independently. Besides, faith and spirituality are vital to any culture and can be deployed as efficient tools for popularizing health education programs and instilling confidence in the ailing population. The integration of spiritual concepts, faith components, and non-traditional education tools can also be instrumental in reaching out to a major segment of this community.

1. Would your program be for the person, extended family, or neighborhood?

The health education program intends to cover both families as well as neighborhood communities as it will enable the inclusion of a large segment of the population. African American population is hereditarily, ethnically, and socioeconomically varied and hence, the Health Education Program needs to consider these differences and subcultures to be effective. They also tend to have large extended families and they attach higher significance to familial ties. Thus, the family’s role in “medical decision making is important” to them (Effective Education to Target populations, n.d pg.6). Once several families in the neighborhood are covered, it will enable the program to extend seamlessly to the entire community.

What positive perceptions, enablers, and nurturers would you want to reinforce? What negative ones would you want to try to overcome?

The positive elements to be reinforced in the health education program of this nature will include:

• Perceptions: Concerns for youth in the prevention of Diabetes Mellitus will be put across and explained to the audience clearly.
• Enablers: Availability and location of resources will be ensured and opportunity will be afforded to the members of the community to participate in the process.
• Nurturers: The influence of family and friends will be positively encouraged to involve the community in the process.

The negative elements that would be required to overcome in a health intervention program of this nature will include:

• Perceptions: Inadequate knowledge of the patients and their families, fallacy, denial to communicate properly and family background or influence, etc will pose a challenge, which needs to be overcome.
• Enablers: Lack of cultural competency within the healthcare system will be an impediment in reaching out to the intended audience. Besides, patients have a tendency to part with only information that health care providers ask for, which will limit the flow of communication.
• Nurturers: Patients’ behavior usually remains passive and they will be required to be encouraged for active participation.

1. What positive aspects of cultural empowerment would you want to reinforce? What negative ones would you want to try to overcome?

The positive aspects of cultural empowerment include having a balanced diet, regular exercise, going to the church, and underlining their belief in faith and spirituality. The negative aspects based on beliefs, values, and relationships that discourage the patient from communicating freely, will need to be overcome.

1. What existential ones would you acknowledge but not try to change?

The programs and attitudes that provide a sense of inevitability for developing interventions against Diabetes Mellitus such as, “traditional healing & spirituality” and “Faith leaders as sources of support” will be encouraged and allowed to continue (Cowdery, et al. 2010 pg.37).

2. What challenges do you foresee in trying to plan and implement health education programs for this cultural group?

High blood pressure, also recognized as hypertension, is one of the most general chronic illnesses among blacks in the US. Besides, it is the main reason for disability and death, which contributes to the high mortality rate among blacks. HBP management frequently includes dietary modifications and behavioral changes, along with administration of antihypertensive medicines that need close follow-up from a healthcare contributor. Black men living in poor or urban communities are found to have a high occurrence of HBP, and they normally do not have timely access to health facilities. In many cases, they ignore the disease and do not look for care or seek treatment. The research group developed a plan, utilizing a multidisciplinary healthcare group guided by a nurse to work on men with HBP. Even though many patients admit to taking anti-hypertension medicine half of them did not have insurance. Creating proper awareness and eliminating cultural barriers, wherever these exist, can be instrumental in actively involving this group in intervention programs.  A national health education and screening project among African American groups of people has been implemented and the outcomes positive consequences results of screening tests indicate that there is still scope for improvement through community-based intervention programs and by educating this group about the disease. The statistics in this regard show that this disease and its treatments “cost the U.S. economy more than $64 billion each year” (Controlling High Blood Pressure 2007, pg.1).

Having high visibility is important for building trust with the community and participants, this can be attained with regular visibility can be accomplished through television, radio, posters, or extra faith-based groups. Some African American communities have concerned members of the groups, for instance, stylists, barbers, health educators, giving incentives to raise participation. Providing motivations for programs is an efficient means for generating and sustaining the participation of ailing individuals.

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