Culture Concept for Health and Care

Explaining culture in the context health with illustration

All types of cultures have systems of health beliefs to explain what factors responsible for illness, how it can be treated and who should be involved in the process. The influence of culture on health is very huge. This makes impacts in perceptions of health, illness, beliefs about causes of disease, different approaches related to health promotions etc .Along with this, culture of a region also helps the health care service providers to know about the types of treatment prefer by the patients to treat the illness. Both health professionals and health care service users influence by their respective culture and this thing gives shapes to the health system in a nation or area. Cultural bias may offers different health related preferences and insights. By negotiating and aware from these differences, it allows care providers to consider several beliefs of sources of care in particular direction and create awareness into the community about the diagnosis and treatment planning related to a disease.

For example, Asians are one of the large ethnic groups in the UK. They have several culture beliefs and the health care organization should be aware towards about it. In an extended family, the oldest male is often the decision maker and spokesperson. The interests of the entire family are more imperative rather than the interest of individual. In such kind of family, the older family members are respected by other members and their authority is always remaining unquestioned. In the Asian culture maintaining harmony is very essential and this thing avoids conflicts and direct confrontation with the family members. The impact of this culture is many of the times, the recommendations of health care professionals related to treating a disease is avoided. The following instance shows that the culture of an individual defines his health belief.

Maintenance and transmission of culture in the context of wellbeing and informal healthcare

Changes in the culture in a particular region and its maintenance make impact on wellbeing and informal healthcare services. For example, a positive alteration in culture brings the awareness in the people of a community regarding the wellbeing and health beliefs. This also supports the informal health care services in positive direction. But if the culture of an area has not maintained in the context of health then it will surely not bring any kind of improvements in health and well being of individual. In addition to this, it will not promote informal healthcare services in the community. So, maintenance and transmission of culture in the context of wellbeing and informal healthcare is most important.

Impact of culture on physical activity

Culture of a community affects the physical activity of individual. This impact can be understood from different examples. Poor nutrition and busy life are the responsible factors of excess weight among UK children. From the research, it has found that there are less likely to eat the recommended daily amount of fruits, whole grains and fruits and are more likely to consume those food items that contains high amount of fat and sodium. These children are less physically active and more likely to watch to TV while eating. Due to this, the body weight becomes start to increase and there are no social pressures to lose weight. The increased weight in the childhood becomes the reason of obesity disease in the future. It makes unable them to physically active and takes part in different activities. So, this shows how the culture makes impacts on physical activity of individual.

Another example is taking from the Indian culture. In the past time, the females were not allowed to being a part of the physical activities such as sports etc. That time, the people were known that females are only made for doing household work rather than outside work or physical activities. Those things were made physically inactive. But with the time, the following culture of India has become changed. Now, the parents are supporting their daughters to take a part in the different kinds of physical activities such sports etc. The change in this culture becomes make the female more physically active and enable to play different roles in the life. Therefore, from the above discussion, it has been clear that the culture in which person in living affects this physical activeness in both positive and negative manner.

Social support in the context of informal healthcare with examples

Informal health care is a care services that given to dependent persons who is ill, at elder age, handicapped etc. These services are providing by going outside the frameworks and rule of organized, paid and professional work. In the present time, in the UK, different communities have started to adopt care policies for dependent peoples who are facing various mental or physical health issue. On the other hand, social support means having friends, families and other members that helps individual at the time of crisis to give a broader focus on maintaining a positive attitude. It supports the concept of informal healthcare services in an effective manner. This can be understood from an example. In the UK, there are many people who face dementia health issues in elderly age. There are many care homes which provides the health care services related to this disease. But most of them care organizations are unable to arrange the funds for the proper treatment of these patients. Due to this, the services users do not getting right treatment for illness on right time. In this case, if the local community of the UK supports in the context of informal healthcare then this issue can be resolve. Suppose the medicines vendors can deliver the medicines to these dementia cares homes on low cost and can be work as informal health care service providers. So such kinds of social support in the context of informal healthcare assist in minimizing different health issues.

Nature of social participation in the context of health

Social participation are those activities that undertaken inside and outside the house. It allows the participations to meet with the others, give contribution to others and staying involved in community. In the context of health, social participation can be divided into productive and recreational activities. In productive social participation, individual contributes his or her resources in the society with the help of either voluntary or any association. While in recreational social participation, the person improve own well being and self develop with different activities. There are various benefits and limitations of social participations in the context of health. These can be understood by an example. Connectivity of a person with the community all the time give him feeling of self efficacy, a sense of meaning of living in the society and better mental health. Social participation supports the well being of individual. Suppose a person is physiological not good and the reason of this because of his less social participations. It has affected his neuroendocrine and immune systems. So, the benefit of social participation is to increase the well being and improve the health of individual. But there are different factors that limit the social participation of a person. The culture, chronic conditions, elderly age, health issues etc are some elements which create barriers to social participation. For example, chronic disease and locometer activities limit the participation of elder age people in social work. On the other hand, socio-economic status and gender discrimination in the community may also develop a barrier to individual to being a part of social activities. From the above discussion, it has determined that the major benefit of social participation is improving the well being. But there some limitations that reduce contribution of person in community work in the context of health.

Construction of personal control and outline ways

There are different phases can be considered at the time of developing personal control for rehabilitation service users. These are determining the issue of patients, develop the treatment as per the requirement of users, impose those options on service user and monitor the improvement in individual. From these activities, an effective personal control plan can be developed for rehabilitation patients (Willis, 2013). On the other hand, there are different ways by which development of rehabilitation programs and services can be improved. In this context, rehabilitation outcomes are one of the methods which allow proving success in rehabilitation service area. It will bring the improvement in related programs and services. On the other hand, by sharing the client success stories in rehabilitation programs, it becomes easy to enhance the quality of services in right manner. Along with this, by educating the people related to services of rehabilitation during the programs, it will bring the enhancement in the related services

Conclusion

From the above study, it can be concluded that culture is a pattern of ideas, customers and behaviours shared by an individual or a community. It has made the impact on the health beliefs of the people. Along with this, it also influenced the level of perceptions of illness and health, opinions and myths regarding the causes of diseases etc. A culture of a person has affected the health promotion strategies of the health care organizations. Beside this, it has assisted the health care professionals to know about the requirements and needs of the care users related to the treatments of diseases.

References

• Acton, A., 2013. Issues in Dentistry, Oral Health, Deontology, and Craniofacial Research. Scholarly Editions.
• Andrews, T., Reddy, L., and Whelan, P., 2011. Addressing the needs of older people with co-morbid alcohol and mental health disorders: a case series from a London Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). Advances in Dual Diagnosis.
• Fakhimi, M. and Probert, J., 2013. Operations research within UK healthcare: a review. Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
• Griffith, R. and Tengnah, C., 2011. Law and Professional Issues in Nursing. Learning Matters.
• Handy, C., 2014. Housing, health and social care – an introduction. Journal of Integrated Care. .
• Herring, J., 2013. Q&A Medical Law 2013-2014. Routhledge.
• Kline, R. and Preston-Shoot, M., 2012. Professional Accountability in Social Care and Health: Challenging unacceptable practice and its management. Learning Matters.
• Lloyd, M., 2010. A Practical Guide to Care Planning in Health and Social Care. McGraw-Hill International

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