Health Promotion in Minority Populations- The Hispanic-Latino Community

Health Promotion in Minority Populations- The Hispanic-Latino Community

Ethnic minorities in the United States have many barriers to healthcare services such as disease management and health promotion activities. Hispanic/Latinos are the largest minority population. They encountered many health issues due to several issues such as lack of access to healthcare services, low socioeconomic status, and lack of coverage by insurance companies. This population suffers from hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2021). Healthcare professionals should thus be culturally competent to ensure they identify health disparities this population is suffering from. They must also institute care plans which will meet the needs of this population. Do you need urgent assignment help ? Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com.

Identification and Description

Hispanic/Latinos include people from Central American countries, South American Countries, and Mexico. This ethnicity values family with a lot of respect accorded to the elderly. They are always consulted on any significant decisions. Hispanic/Latinos are raised to respect figures of authority and the elderly. They value their language and teach their children Spanish. The Hispanic/Latino is patriarchial in nature. The father is the head of the family, and his job is to provide for the family. The mother, on the other hand, hand takes care of the family and the children. They practice unity and love, and when a family member has a problem, the whole family steps in to help the individual. They are a religious ethnicity, with most of them being Roman Catholics. They pray for good health and healing. They prefer traditional herbal medicine to cure their ailments. They use herbal products and fork healers for their health issues (Green et al., 2017). There is a lot of superstition in this ethnicity, and they attach diseases to supernatural forces.

Health Disparities and Nutritional Challenges

The nutritional practices in this group are causing them a lot of health issues. Hispanic/Latinos consume high amounts of carbohydrates, such as rice, spicy foods, and sugary drinks (Mora & Golden, 2017). This predisposes them to diabetes. Most Hispanics/Latinos are of low socioeconomic status, and hence, they practice these traditional dietary practices since they are cheap and can cook large amounts for their families. Fast foods in the United States are cheaper than organic meals, and hence Hispanics/Latinos tend to eat fast foods that have a high-fat content, further predisposing them to diabetes. Most Hispanics/Latinos are obese, with an average national prevalence of 45.8% among adults (CDC, 2021). This makes Hispanics/Latinos the ethnicity with the second-highest prevalence of obesity in the United States.Hispanic/Latino American adults have a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes than other ethnicities in the United States, with a national average of 40%. In comparison, Hispanic/Latinos have a 50% of developing diabetes (CDC, 2021). Diabetes is one of the leading causes of mortality in this minority population.

Barriers to Health

One barrier that Hispanic/Latinos face is language barriers (Mora & Golden, 2017). Most members of this ethnicity speak Spanish as their only language. Others are not fluent in English, and hence, they cannot effectively communicate with healthcare professionals who do not speak Spanish. The second barrier they face is many illegal Latino immigrants in the United States (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016) due to this illegal status. Many Hispanics/Latinos fear seeking healthcare services due to fear of deportation.

Another significant barrier to access to healthcare is the lack of insurance coverage by this group. Hispanics have lower rates of insurance coverage compared to non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). In 2014, 26.5% of Hispanics did not have insurance coverage, while the NHWs only had 10.4% non-insured (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016). The poverty levels among Hispanics are also high compared to other ethnicities in the United States. The median household income of Latinos/Hispanics is 52% lower than that of non-Hispanic whites, with close to 23.6 of Latinos/Hispanics living below the poverty level (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016). This is in contrast to the national average, which is at 14.8% (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016).  Due to these poverty levels, Hispanics cannot enroll in healthcare insurance, increasing the risk of not accessing healthcare services.

Health Promotion Activities

Hispanic/Latinos believe that health has physical and emotional dimensions (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). They believe that there is a strong connection between faith and health. They believe that praying to God can help in promoting good health among them. In addition to this, they believe that participating in community services can help promote emotional health (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). Even though they have a connection of good health with faith, they still believe that physical health is based on evaluation by healthcare professionals (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). This is very contradictory since they face many barriers to accessing healthcare services. Latinos believe that faith is essential to emotional health, and connection to their faith restores their emotional health (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). Latinos believe that food makes them strong and that they must practice the American lifestyle for an individual to be healthy (Mikell & Snethen, 2020).

In my observations, Latinos like to self-medicate instead of seeking healthcare services. They also do not like preventive services, and they prefer to go to the hospital when the condition becomes a medical emergency. They also use herbal products to treat themselves and prevent illness.

Health Promotion Prevention

An estimated 48% of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States are Roman Catholics (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). This shows that faith is essential for this ethnicity. The best health promotion model for Latinos would thus be through the incorporation of faith community nurses. Faith community nurses (FCN) can link the faith and health of Latinos and use this to implement health promotion strategies at the parish level. This will help in developing holistic health promotion activities. Through primary prevention activities, the FCNs can educate the parish members on lifestyle modifications such as healthy diet and physical activities, which can help to prevent obesity, which is prevalent among Latinos. They can also implement screening for diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Secondary prevention will involve instructing the Latinos to always adhere to their diabetic medication and instructing them to augment pharmacotherapy with lifestyle modifications. Tertiary prevention will involve educating them on the severity and complications of diabetes. It will involve implementing strategies to prevent readmissions related to diabetes, such as foot care, adherence to medications, and education on insulin administration.

Cultural Competence

Latinos have a communal way of life with decision-making and accountability of the most importance.  Nurses must thus understand these cultural norms to create strong relationships with Latinos. This will create a strong community network and help in implementing health promotion activities. Nurses must collaborate with established groups within the Latinos, recognize the authority figures, and understand gender roles to help them implement a plan that will benefit all sub-groups (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). Nurses must respect the health promotion practices of Latinos while respectfully offering better options. Latinos prefer herbal teas to prevent diseases, and they may not be healthy.

Conclusion

Latinos/Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in the United States. They have their cultural beliefs and norms to which they strongly adhere. Their nutritional practices, in particular, put them at risk of conditions such as diabetes, which is one of the leading causes of mortalities in this ethnicity. Healthcare professionals must be culturally competent when dealing with Latinos, and they must consider the factors leading to healthcare disparities among this group.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2021, May 7). FastStats. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/hispanic-health.htm

Green, R. R., Santoro, N., Allshouse, A. A., Neal-Perry, G., & Derby, C. (2017). Prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine and herbal remedy use in Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women: Results from the study of women’s health across the nation. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 23(10), 805-811. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2017.0080

MIkell, M. J., & Snethen, J. (2020). Perceptions of health promotion and maintenance among Latinos in faith communities. Journal of Christian Nursing, 37(2), E17-E18. https://doi.org/10.1097/cnj.0000000000000711

Mora, N., & Golden, S. H. (2017). Understanding cultural influences on dietary habits in Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latino patients with type 2 diabetes: A review of current literature and future directions. Current Diabetes Reports, 17(12). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-017-0952-6

Velasco-Mondragon, E., Jimenez, A., Palladino-Davis, A. G., Davis, D., & Escamilla-Cejudo, J. A. (2016). Hispanic health in the USA: A scoping review of the literature. Public Health Reviews, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-016-0043-2

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I would like to discuss the Hispanic/Latino minority. Please use information from CDC guideline.