Competency is an important factor in any discipline or profession. Nursing, just like any other profession, is guided and based on the competency of practising nurses. Competency ranges from various factors and can extend beyond just the basic knowledge of the professional requirements and abilities. Competency transcends the ability to integrate, relate and adapt to the various environments and groups of individuals where an individual is assigned, employed or attached. Cultural competency is another key factor, especially in nursing, because it involves the ability of an individual to understand the cultural aspect of a group of people and the appropriate ways of handling and relating to the various cultural perspectives that they encounter (Meeker, 2022).
Campinha-Bacote provides a very effective cultural competence model that is suitable for various situations and environments.Campinha-Bacote’s model suits the handling of complex community-related issues for nurses because of how detailed it is in regard to cultural awareness. Campinha-Bacote’s model is composed of five major factors, which include cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural encounter and cultural desire. Addressing health disparities in communities by implementing cultural competence is a significant step because it ensures that the practitioners are able to modify their services and operations to be more patient-centred and comfortable for the patients (Racine, 2022).
Recent research has indicated that individuals of Hispanic or Latino heritage are almost twice as likely to die from diabetes as compared to other groups.Hispanic or Latino adults also have an 80% chance of being diagnosed with diabetes as compared to other non-Hispanic/Latino adults. Another CDC research states that Hispanic/Latin adults in the USA are 17% likelier to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as compared to non-Hispanic/Latin white adults (Cristina Aguayo-Mazzucato, 2018). It is clear that the prevalence of cases of diabetes or pre-diabetes is very high in the Hispanic/Latin community, and it needs urgent addressing in order to reduce the health disparity in the Latin group.
As already illustrated, Campinha-Bacote’s cultural competency model is a model that ensures that nurses or medical practitioners handle their tasks and roles with competency. The five components of the model each have a significant role in ensuring cultural competency in regards to handling different patients with different cultural backgrounds. Cultural awareness is the first component of the model, and it entails understanding and identifying the major values and factors that influence a patient’s cultural values and beliefs. Skills entail having the ability to assess and handle various issues and needs. Knowledge entails intentionally learning and trying to understand concepts related to different cultures and communities. Encounters relate to the experience and the interactions that individual nurses or health practitioners have in regards to interacting or encountering different people with diverse backgrounds and cultures. At the same time, desire generally covers the determination and willingness of an individual to learn and understand the different cultures that they interact with and also employing competency in their practices and interactions with different patients (Racine, 2022).
Campinha-Bacote’s model is incorporated with the basic nursing paradigms, which include the environment, the individuals or people, health and nursing. As stated, Campinha-Bacote’s model is suitable for understanding and solving the alarming issue of diabetes in the Hispanic/Latin community. The Healthy People 2030 framework enlists several key areas of focus; one of the areas is chronic health awareness. Diabetes is a chronic health condition which is noticeably affecting the Hispanic/Latino community at a higher and deadlier rate than other minority groups in the United States of America. Campinha-Bacote’s model entails understanding an issue and the community, group or patient involved in many aspects before employing culturally competent solutions to the issues (Meeker, 2022).
The following steps can be employed to address the high number of diabetes cases and deaths in the Hispanic community while employing Campinha-Bacote’s model of cultural competency. The first step is cultural awareness, and in this case, it is very important to have enough details and information about Latin culture and how it may be related to the high number of diabetes cases. Various specific issues play a hand in the growing catastrophe, which is diabetes in the Latin American community. It is important to note that various factors contribute to the increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the Latino community; these factors have to be approached and addressed in detail (Racine, 2022).
There are various telling statistics about the Latin community that relate to their cases of high susceptibility to diabetes; one includes a 20.2% glucose intolerance compared to 15% in non-Hispanic white adults; the obesity rate is also slightly higher in the Hispanic/Latin–American community at 44% in and 49.2% in women while non-Hispanic whites it is 37.1%, cases of obesity in children are also slightly higher in the Latin/Hispanic community compared to the non-Hispanic whites. At the same time, also cases of extreme diabetes are generally higher in Hispanic/Latin communities. Other factors, such as higher poverty rates in Latin America as compared to other groups, the majority of the people without health insurance, and lower literacy rates, are all important to note in regard to being more aware of the Hispanic community and some of their issues. Other cultural factors worth noting include lifestyle, which influences things such as diet, sleeping routines and physical activities. The general overview and understanding of some key factors that may influence the prevalence and susceptibility to type 2 diabetes is an appropriate approach to being more aware of the situation and the cultural factors related to the issue of type 2 diabetes (Cristina Aguayo-Mazzucato, 2018).
The second step is cultural knowledge, which entails educating both the health practitioners and the patients ‘community’. In the cases of the Latino community, it would be very important for the nurses and other health practitioners who work or interact with patients from the community to be appropriately educated for them to be significantly aware and knowledgeable on the cultural factors that are dominant in the Latin American community and how they may contribute to the high number of type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes in the Latin American community. Education in this regard transcends the social needs, the family structures, the diets and even spiritual beliefs in the Latin American community and how they impact their health. Another important step in addressing the issue of type 2 diabetes prevalence in the Latino community is developing the necessary cultural skills that would enable seamless interaction and communication (Cristina Aguayo-Mazzucato, 2018).
Equipping medical practitioners with the necessary skills and abilities to comfortably and respectfully interact with the locals is an important step in addressing the issues. The next step in reference to Campinha-Bacote’s model is cultural encounter, which entails having personal and actual interactions with the community, the actual culture and experiencing the culture first hand hence enhancing the perception and general knowledge. In this case, having nurses and medical practitioners interact with Latin families and communities to understand some of the factors that influence their way of living, such as religion, diets, and other factors such as literacy, crime rates and medical covers. The cultural encounters build a bond that enables the patients and physicians to interact smoothly (Balzer, 2022). The final step is cultural desire where by both the patients and the health practitioners constantly cooperating hence are enhancing the desire to address the underlying health issue through constant collaboration and personal motivation and zeal to have a solution to the alarming cases of type 2 diabetes in the Latino community.
Public communication is very important in achieving the Healthy People 2030 issue of chronic health awareness in the Latino community. Communication also enhances the effectiveness of the cultural competence model used in addressing the underlying issue in the community. The following is a communication strategy that would help reduce disparity and promote healthy practices in the Latino community. The first step for the strategy entails understanding and knowing the issue (High number of type 2 diabetes cases in the Latin community).The second step in the communication strategy involves clarifying the goal of the campaign to the target audience, which is the Latin American population. The third step in the strategy is implementing theories and models in trying to illustrate to the target audience why the issue exists and some steps that can be taken to address the issue, which is a high prevalence of type 2 diabetes in this case (public health, 2020).The fourth step involves crafting the message and utilizing partnerships with popular brands and institutions within the community to help spread and popularize the drive. The final step in this strategy is analyzing and monitoring the progress of the public health communication strategy and making changes where necessary.
In conclusion, addressing significant health issues within a community require significant input not only from the individual health practitioners but also the whole communities, governments and also individual drive and motivation. The high rates of diabetes cases in the Latin American communities are very concerning and require just more than physiological addressing, appropriate cultural competence and cooperation is necessary for changing the normalized habits and trends that could be contributing to the high cases of type 2 diabetes even in young children. Government intervention and effective public communication is also necessary.
References:
Balzer, D. (2022, September 28). The importance of diagnosing and treating diabetes in the Hispanic population in the US. Retrieved from newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/the-importance-of-diagnosing-treating-diabetes-in-the-hispanic-population-in-the-us/
Cristina Aguayo-Mazzucato, 1. P. (2018, December 4). Understanding the growing epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the Hispanic population living in the United States. Retrieved from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6953173/#:~:text=There%20are%20a%20number%20of,(summarized%20in%20Table%201).
Meeker, Z. (2022, August 15). Demonstrate and Improve Cultural Competence in Nursing. Retrieved from nurse.com: https://www.nurse.com/blog/demonstrate-improve-cultural-competence-nursing/
publichealth. (2020, September 25). 10 Strategies for Effective Health Communication. Retrieved from publichealth.tulane.edu: https://publichealth.tulane.edu/blog/health-communication-effective-strategies/
Racine, S. A. (2022, Aril 2). Cultural Competency. Retrieved from med.libretexts.org: https://med.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Nursing/Leadership_and_Influencing_Change_in_Nursing_(Wagner)/02%3A_Diversity_in_Health_Care_Organizations/2.04%3A_Cultural_Competency
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