Heritage Assessment: Jamaicans, African Americans, Conclusion

Heritage Assessment
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Introduction
The primary job of nurses is to ensure comfort of patients while they are undergoing treatment. Nurses ensure that patients are well catered by all means in a bid to create a conducive environment for their recovery process. Besides looking after their physical well-being, nurses also have an obligation to ensure that cultural beliefs of patients are respected. Patients come from varying and diverse cultural backgrounds which in turn affect their perception on health. It is crucial for nurses to have an understanding of each patient’s cultural background in relation to health issues. This will ensure that the care given to each patient does not conflict with beliefs held so as to realize a positive outcome. It is for this reason that heritage assessment of patients is pertinent. In conducting heritage assessment, a heritage assessment tool is used to analyze on all aspects of a patient’s heritage (Spector, 2010). In this discussion, a comparative approach has been used to compare families from different cultural affiliations and their different perceptions on health.
Background Information
Heritage is a broad term that refers to a person’s roots, cultural background, beliefs, traditions and customs. It is the way of life of a group of people. Heritage determines the manner in which people live in a society and interact with each other. Heritage varies and is often not uniform. The heritage of each group of people is shaped by certain preexisting factors. Heritage is infinite as it is handed down to subsequent generations with the intention of continuity.
A heritage assessment tool on the other hand refers to a measure of the level of influence of a person’s heritage on their way of life. Heritage assessment tool is used to determine the extent at which the culture of a patient has shaped their beliefs regarding health (Kelly, 2014). With this information, nurses and health practitioners will be best positioned to take care of the patients in tandem with the pre-existing health beliefs.
The Assessment
In conducting the heritage assessment, three different families were picked. Each of this family has a distinct cultural background which directly impacts on the health beliefs. The three families had the following affiliations: Jamaican, African American and Caucasian.
Jamaicans
The Jamaican culture is one of the richest. The culture has a lot to offer to the rest of the world. Jamaica is mainly known for her music, the reggae music that has its origin in Kingston, Jamaica (Edelman, & Mandle, 2010). With the reggae music comes the Rastafarian culture which is part of the larger Christian group but having strong affiliation towards the African culture. Jamaicans have a strong bond with nature and always seek to protect that which is natural. Most of their foods are direct from their farms as they seek to embrace natural resources.
As for their treatment, Jamaicans have a preference for herbal medicine and belief that there is a herb for each illness. Their family ties are strong and they also have reverence for the most high to whom they refer to as Jah. Th...