Health promotion is a process by which people are enabled to improve and have control over their health. This paper analyses the social determinants of health and further looks on how cultural factors impact on the health promotion strategies in place.
For an effective health promotion in different ethnic groups, it is essential to learn their day to day behavior and their culture (Garland. Et al 2005). In learning the ethnicity of people and their beliefs, it will be easier to get them learn what is right for their health depending on what they believe. Foer instance, an African ethnic group, it is known that some groups don’t believe in the western medicine as illustrated in their culture and what they believe. After learning what they believe in, health promotion can be done step by step until they get to learn the importance of having control over their health (Campbell, & Edwards, 2013).
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To quickly promote health in people of lower socioeconomic groups, it is imperative to have them believe that good health is not only for those in the upper socio-economic group. Educating them to have control over their health most simply is the best mean of promoting health to them. One can have a session of teaching the people to improve health by the way they stay, eat and their day-to-day activities such as having exercises (Woolf, & Braveman, 2011).
Culture is the belief of people in a given place. It can be the way they live, do things and what they strongly consider as their ancestry belonging. Culture significantly impacts on health promotion strategies in place. In that, in some groups, they believe that diseases can only be treated by herbal medicines and not the western medicines (Bickley, 2013). When promoting health in such place of people with such cultural belief, it is not easy as they are likely to object the story of the western medicine. Therefore, a negative impact o the strategies to promote health. In some cultures, people believe that tolerating pain and not expressing it out is a show of bravery. When treating pain in such people, they may object the issue of using pain relievers and instruct a clinician not to use the medication for pain; therefore the modern medicine idea may not be helpful to such people (Williams, 2017).
In conclusion, health promotion is essential to human beings as it tries to enable people to get to understand that they can have control over their health without intervention. Social determinants of health can boost health promotion in either positive or a negative way. Cultural factors can significantly impact in a negative way towards the health promotion strategies.
References
Bickley, L. S. (2013). Bates’ guide to physical examination and history taking (11th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.Williams & Wilkins. ISBN: 978-1-60913-762-5
Campbell, C. and Edwards, R. (2013). Ethnic differences in pain management . [online] National Center for Biotechnology Information. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654683/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2017].
Garland, A., Lau, A., Yeh, M., McCabe, K., Hough, R., & Landsverk, J. (2005). Racial and Ethnic Differences in Utilization of Mental Health Services Among High-Risk Youths. American Journal Of Psychiatry , 162 (7), 1336-1343. http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.7.1336
Williams, A. (2017). Thelancet.com . Retrieved 28 September 2017, from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjjqYvh7sjWAhVEMY8KHYToBgsQFghoMAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbioenv.gu.se%2FdigitalAssets%2F1503%2F1503468_the-lancet---culture-and-health.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGJSZ3Tf8bz0FJlttZrAX35_oL77A
Woolf, S., & Braveman, P. (2011). Where Health Disparities Begin: The Role Of Social And Economic Determinants--And Why Current Policies May Make Matters Worse. Health Affairs , 30 (10), 1852-1859. http://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0685
