Essay Example on Navajo Diabetes: Assessing Health Needs in Remote Areas

Introduction

Diabetes is a health condition that occurs when an individual’s blood glucose is high. A health assessment is a plan of care that aims to identify the specific needs of a patient and how a health professional will work with the patient to ensure those needs are met. Various populations have individuals who have diabetes. For instance, diabetes is prevalent among the Navajo, a Native American community. In America, most of the Navajo population lives in remote areas. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d), Navajo, the largest tribal community in America, are twice as likely as any other nation to experience diabetes because of health inequalities such as the lack of access to care. Also, CDC (n.d) indicated that up to 200,000 people live in the Navajo Nation. Additionally, it is approximated that more than 75000 people in the Navajo nation have prediabetes, and 1 in 5 adults have diabetes (CDC, n.d). I will be working with older adults in the Navajo Native American community to establish interventions for diabetes. The focus of this paper will be to discuss a health assessment and teaching plan for the community. The main points to be discussed include a cultural, learning, and motivation assessment, a wellness diagnosis, which relates to activity, nutrition, and stress assessment, wellness goals, as well as health promotion interventions.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Health Assessment

Cultural Assessment

An effective healthcare plan will need a cultural assessment plan to meet the needs of the community. The purpose of a cultural assessment is to establish trust between the community and I to determine the specific needs that will help them with nutrition and stress reduction strategies. The cultural assessment of each older adult in the community will include the following questions:

• What cultural group do you identify with?
• What are some of the negative and positive experiences you have had when communicating with other people?
• What barriers do you experience in accessing healthcare?
• What are your feelings about living with diabetes?
• How many meals do you have per day?
• What are some of the foods do you normally consume?
• Do you have someone who you share any problems you might have?

Learning Assessment

After the end of the presentation, the specific learning objective for older adults in the community will include the following,

Learn more about their condition - they will learn about diabetes, its causes, and prevention strategies.

Learn proper nutrition to take care of their condition -The community will learn to incorporate only the recommended amount of calories in their diet, eat fruits and vegetables, as well as drink water without added sugars.

Learn exercises that will help the them manage their condition - they will learn to do exercises such as walking and jogging 3-4 times per week.

Identify stressors in their life and the coping mechanisms – they will manage to identify the possible stressors in their lives. Also, they will learn the coping mechanism for stress such as education about diabetes and finding support from their families, getting medications and diet plans organized, as well as practicing meditation.

Know how to get resources for diabetes control – They will learn about ways to access credible resources online that discuss the incorporation of proper diet and exercises to improve their quality of life.

Motivational Assessment

Motivation will be a major factor that the community will need through the intervention. Some of the motivation strategies to help them will include helping them to make good food choices and allow them to vent their frustrations on their causes of stress. Furthermore, I will organize morning walks with them every weekend and, as well as remind them every morning through text message to take their medications and test their blood sugars.

Wellness Diagnosis

Physical Activity

The community will need to understand that the lack of physical activity would make them gain weight and make their bones weaker. With that in mind, they will need to make physical activity as part of their life. For example, after dinner, every evening, the community could hold walk for about thirty minutes. Besides that, people who have diabetes in the community could join Native American dance groups, which would help them to manage stress as well as maintain a healthy weight.

Nutrition

The people who have diabetes in the community will need a healthy nutritional plan. Some of the things that they will need to incorporate in their diet include fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, participating in gardening projects, for example, would save the community the costs of buying fruits and vegetables daily. Lombard et al. (2014) indicated that encouraging gardening is a significant wellness strategy among the Navajo. Undoubtedly, gardening would be a significant nutritional strategy that would encourage a healthy lifestyle because it gives access to affordable and healthy meals. Additionally, planting local fruits and vegetables will encourage the clients to eat healthy meals and live quality lives.

Stress

Among the Navajo Native American community, one possible cause of stress is their quest for tribal justice. Todacheene (2015) indicated that before the introduction of the Euro-American cultural system, the Navajo nation had its traditions and values as well as land. However, after that, the imbalance of culture made the nation lose its land, as well as, traditional values and cultures. Furthermore, Trevisi wt al. (2019) indicated that the lack of access to treatment on conditions such as diabetes is a burden to people in the Navajo. The clients will need to learn stress coping mechanisms such as social support from each other and their families to help them with her condition.

Wellness Goals

Some of the wellness goals for the community that I would want to see at the end of the intervention include manage their blood sugar level, prevent foot problems, manage chronic stress, and maintain a healthy weight.

Health Promotion Interventions

Empowering Self-Care

Self-care refers to activities that a client would follow to ensure that they manage their condition. Zhao (2019) indicated that some of the self-care activities for diabetes include following the prescription medication schedule, regulating diet, testing blood sugar, and exercising. The clients in the Navajo community will need to follow the self-care activities mentioned and incorporate foot care to improve their health outcomes.

Vulnerable Populations

Vulnerable populations are those who are economically disadvantaged, are in minority groups, and lack medical insurance. King et al. (2018) indicated that the Navajo nation experiences health inequalities because of the lack of access to care. In their study of the approach to primary care for the Navajo nation, the authors fond that working closely with the vulnerable population and doing follow-ups after admission improved the health outcomes of the participants. The community is vulnerable because of reasons such as the lack of access to care and quality health services. Doing follow-ups with the clients to remind and encourage them through the intervention process will help to improve their health outcomes.

Cultural Sensitivity

The Navajo community and I are from different cultures. Due to that, encompassing cultural sensitivity would ease the intervention process and make the population be more cooperative and accepting. However, having worked in a hospital area where Native Americans lived, I became familiar with the concept of cultural sensitivity during treatment. Nevertheless, to make the clients more accepting, I would seek the help of a local Navajo nurse, who would help in convincing them about the importance of the intervention.

Conclusion

The health assessment and teaching plan will help the Navajo Native American community learn to incorporate a healthy nutritional plan, learn how to do exercises, and manage stress. Identifying the specific needs of the population will be beneficial because they will manage to live healthier lives. As seen, the health assessment and teaching plan focused on the behavioral modification for Navajo population. From research about the Navajo nation, it is apparent that the community needs support and motivation through the intervention. Most importantly, they will need social support across from each other to help them through the nutrition and exercise process. Overall, the community will need to be cooperative during the intervention to ensure that they live long and quality lives.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d). Navajo youth lead the way to healthier lives inArizona, Utah, and New Mexico. NCCDPHP Success Story. https://nccd.cdc.gov/nccdsuccessstories/TemplateSeven.aspx?s=13770&ds=1#:~:text=Approximately%20200%2C000%20Navajos%20live%20on,estimated%20that%2075%2C000%20have%20prediabetes.

King, C., Atwood, S., Brown, C., Nelson, A. K., Lozada, M., Wei, J., Merino, M., Curley, C., Muskett, O., Sabo, S., Gampa, V., Orav, J., & Shin, S. (2018). Primary care and survival among American Indian patients with diabetes in the Southwest United States: Evaluation of a cohort study at Gallup Indian Medical Center, 2009-2016. Primary care diabetes, 12(3), 212–217. doi: 10.1016/j.pcd.2017.11.003

Lombard, K. A., Beresford, S. A., Ornelas, I. J., Topaha, C., Becenti, T., Thomas, D., & Vela, J.G. (2014). Healthy gardens/healthy lives: Navajo perceptions of growing food locally to prevent diabetes and cancer. Health promotion practice, 15(2), 223–231. doi: 10.1177/1524839913492328

Todacheene, H. J. (2015). She saves us from monsters: The Navajo creation story and modern tribal justice. Tribal Law Journal, 15. https://lawschool.unm.edu/tlj/volumes/vol15/TLJ_15-2_Todacheene.pdf

Trevisi, L., Orav, J. E., Atwood, S., Brown, C., Curley, C., King, C., Muskett, O., Sehn, H., Nelson, K. A., Begay, M. G., & Shin, S. S. (2019). Integrating community health representatives with health care systems: clinical outcomes among individuals with diabetes in Navajo Nation. International journal for equity in health, 18(1), 183. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-019-1097-9

Zhao, F., Suhonen, R., Katajisto, J., Stolt, M., & Leino-Kilpi, H. (2019). Association between diabetes-related self-care activities and positive health: A cross-sectional study. British Medical Journal Open, 9(e023878). doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023878