Cultural Empowerment in Health Promotion - Essay Example

"Cultural Empowerment in Health Promotion" is an excellent example of a paper on social and family issues.
We are in a century whereby certain illnesses are becoming more and more sensitive. These illnesses do not only require medical checkup, but also social education. The prevention of these diseases has become of a concern than treatment.  According to Edelstein (2010) prevention has reduced the number of patients succumbing to the diseases significantly.  Prevention entails empowerment and educating the public regarding these diseases. In the cultural ties, empowerment has been of great help to individuals. An example of culture empowerment is when dealing with high blood pressure in African American society. The paper will focus on the empowerment procedure used to sensitize the effects of the disease among African American men.

In this community, social education is very important when it comes to deal with diseases. The understanding between individuals from the culture is great. This provides the easiest means to reach out to the men in society. Most empowerment sessions are done in groups or social gatherings. The empowerment sessions aim at sensitizing both individuals and groups of people. According to Perez & Luquis (2010) group empowerment is easier than self-empowerment. It is for this empowerment is usually advocated for individuals. This is advantageous because it gives each person specific reasons to live a healthy life. The empowerment sessions also aim more than social ties. They aim deep into kinship ties. This way, family members are able to cater to any ill individual in the family. High Blood Pressure patients need a lot of care from people around them. It is for this reason that kinship ties are also targeted. Then there is the empowerment of the whole African American society. With the empowerment of society, men in the community are easily sensitized on how to tackle high blood pressure (Gregson, 2001). The whole neighborhood is also important when it comes to the provision of care, support, and medical advice.

In the PEN-3 model on the dimension of cultural empowerment, there are three factors. They are positive, exotic, and negative.

Positive

The positive factors are those beliefs, assumptions, or perceptions which add value to the whole community. With deep cultural roots, the African American community has beliefs and practices. One of the positive perceptions is the eating of vegetables and fruits. It is assumed that the African American community has a love for real food that is vegetables, fruits, and other heavy metals. These are positive factors since they add value to their health. Eating fruits for high blood pressure patients is very helpful.

Exotic

The exotic factors are unclear perceptions and also have unclear consequences on society. However, the consequences have no health harm on society. The exotic factors are then not discouraged. The empowerment programs aim at explaining the exotic factors rather than discouraging them. An example of exotic factors is exercising. Exercising is of great importance to high blood pressure individuals but the extent of the exercise should be dictated by the empowerment programs.

Negative

The negative factors are the perceptions and beliefs with harmful effects in society. The negative factors have a very negative impact on the health of people. Empowering programs aimed at stopping the perceptions are create a health hazard-free society. Drug abuse in the African Community is one of the negative factors. Patients with high blood pressure can barely control the effects of heavy drugs in their bodies (Gregson, 2001).