Essay on African American Culture -- World Cultures Essays Papers

Essay on African American Culture Works Cited Missing African American culture is defined as the learned, shared and transmitted values, beliefs, norms, and life ways carried by this group of people, which guides their decisions, thinking, and actions in patterned ways. The individual in society is bound by rules of their culture. Culture of people are different in that the same events that maybe fear- inducing in one culture, maybe anger-inducing in another culture (Leininger's, 1991). The theoretical framework that I used for this paper is Leininger's Sunrise Model. It describes the factors that have to be assessed in order to provide competent trans cultural care for a culture. These include educational factors, economic factors, political and legal factors, cultural values and life ways, kinship and social factors, religious and philosophical factors, technological factors, generic or folk systems within a cultural care worldview (Leininger's, 1991). There is tremendous diversity among African Americans. They live in all areas of the United States and come from all socioeconomic levels. Approximately ninety percent of African Americans have some Caucasian ancestry and at least twenty-five have Native American ancestry. They are more present time oriented group of people. However, there may be strong future oriented behaviors as well. These include saving for college education for children, purchasing insurance policies to cover funeral and burial cost, etc. Elders may place a great deal of values on past experiences, which are frequently shared with younger individuals. The dominant language among African American is English. Speech may be accompanied by animated non-verbal gestures such as a hand movemen... ...at prevented them to keep their appointments, make lifestyle changes, and take medications as prescribed. Positive influences were the support of close family members and also the presence of caring health care providers (Rose et al., 2000). The review of literature corresponds to the African Americans risk of getting hypertension. It showed that African American are at a higher risk for hypertension because many of them are unwilling to seek medical care and even when they do they do not take their medications as prescribed. Hypertension will continue to be a major cause of death all for Americans especially African Americans. Limitations in care for the under-served will continue to be a growing problem. Solutions must be made to provide the delivery of high quality, lower cost and especially effective primary care to the underserved populations.