Importance of Considering Multiple Perspectives
For this Assignment, you will build upon your previous work by reflecting on your goals and objectives as they relate to diversity and multiculturalism within your profession.
This Assignment has two parts, both of which should be addressed within this paper. You will begin this Assignment by providing a 2-page analysis assessing the significance of diversity and multicultural perspectives within public health and health education fields.
Please identify why it is important to consider multiple perspectives before beginning an intervention.
The second part of the Assignment is to reflect upon the goals and objectives you created in Unit 4. As they are written, could they be applied to a diverse or multicultural population?
How would they need to change to be culturally sensitive or inclusive?
Conclude this Assignment with a short discussion on strategies to implement these changes.
Sample Answer
Importance of Considering Multiple Perspectives before Beginning Interventions
Diversity and consideration of multiple perspectives are important within the public health and health education fields. It is therefore important to consider multiple perspectives before beginning a particular public health intervention because considering such perspectives allows for better care to be provided to diverse populations (Shepherd et al., 2019). Having a diverse public health team can help promote multiple perspectives during interventions due to the presence of individuals in public health intervention teams who can identify with certain target populations and understand the healthcare needs of such populations and the ideal strategies that can help to address the health care needs. Diversity in public health intervention teams helps in the promotion of multiple perspectives and the provision of better services for different populations (Stubbe, 2020). It is also important to consider multiple perspectives before the beginning of public health intervention because such a move promotes higher morale in the implementation team. Having a diverse public health intervention team and considering the input of all members of such a team creates a stronger feeling of community and inclusion among public health workers, which makes the workers enjoy and feel safer in the workplace and provide more effective interventions. It is also important to consider multiple perspectives before beginning a public health intervention because the consideration of multiple perspectives can enhance better problem-solving in a public health intervention team and increase the chances for better results (Greene-Moton & Minkler, 2019). Considering a wide range of perspectives in the implementation, public health interventions can lead to more creative solutions when solving problems related to the health of the population. Considering multiple perspectives can also promote operational excellence and innovation, which can play a significant role in enhancing the effectiveness of certain public health interventions. The consideration of multiple perspectives in the implementation of public health interventions can also lead to better results. Public health intervention teams that consider multiple perspectives from diverse members are therefore able to provide better public health intervention services compared to those that do not consider multiple perspectives (Greene-Moton & Minkler, 2019).
Application of Goals and Objectives in Diverse Multicultural Populations
The goals and objectives, including reducing the current use of cigarette smoking by at least 15% in the next five years, increasing Medicaid coverage for smoking cessation treatment, and ensuring the banning of smoking in restaurants worksites, and bars across more states, would be difficult to apply in diverse or multicultural populations. This is because the goals and objectives could not be adopted uniformly in different populations and societies. To make the goals and objectives more culturally sensitive and inclusive, each goal will need to be implemented after consideration of the culture of the target population. For instance, the goal to reduce cigarette smoking by at least 5% in the next five years would need to consider the cultural associations of different communities and groups to smoking. Among groups whose culture allows smoking more, the target would be set lower, and more public health education adopted to encourage smoking cessation. On the other hand, the objective relating to increasing Medicaid coverage for smoking cessation treatment would not be uniform among all populations, with the emphasis of such a goal being on low-income populations. Low-income populations would therefore need more Medicaid coverage compared to higher earners.
The ideal strategy to implement culturally sensitive approaches in public health intervention would be to rely on a diverse team that would be charged with the drawing up of such policies (Greene-Moton & Minkler, 2019).
References
- Greene-Moton, E., & Minkler, M. (2019). Cultural Competence or Cultural Humility? Moving Beyond the Debate. Health Promotion Practice, 21(1), 142–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839919884912
- Shepherd, S. M., Willis-Esqueda, C., Newton, D., Sivasubramaniam, D., & Paradies, Y. (2019). The challenge of cultural competence in the workplace: perspectives of healthcare providers. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-3959-7
- Stubbe, D. E. (2020). Practicing Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility in the Care of Diverse Patients. FOCUS, 18(1), 49–51. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20190041
