Community Cultural Need
Description of Culture/Ethnic Population
The ethnic population I have chosen is American Indians. Today, however, Indians continue to be systematically discriminated against by U.S. authorities. The current population of Native Americans and Alaska Natives is only 1.3% of the total U.S. population (Chu et al., 2023).
Native Americans have equal political rights nominally, but only 66% of the 4.7 million eligible Native Americans are registered (Chu et al., 2023). Furthermore, more than 1.5 million eligible Native Americans cannot exercise their right to vote because of political obstacles (Ashabi, 2019). Currently, there are only four members of the U.S. Congress of Indian descent, which is about 0.74% of the total membership of the two chambers (Chu et al., 2023). The overall political status and political influence of Native Americans are much lower than their share of the U.S. population.
American Indian life expectancy is lower than the average American’s. The rate of drug abuse among Native American teenagers is 13.3 times higher than the national average, the rate of alcohol abuse is 1.4 times higher, and the suicide rate is 1.9 times higher than the national average (Chu et al., 2023). Indians have a lower average education rate and the highest poverty rate than all other races. Indians are twice as likely to be incarcerated for petty crimes. The incarceration rate for Indian men is four times higher than for white men, and the incarceration rate for Indian women is six times higher than for white women.
Indians have already accomplished much – ending discrimination, forced sterilization, tribal sovereignty, and representation. Native American reservations occupy only 2.3% of the country (Ashabi, 2019). They are remote and infertile, with poor living conditions. The poverty rate on some reservations even exceeds 85% (Ashabi, 2019). The U.S. government also systematically uses some Indian reservations as dumping grounds for toxic and nuclear waste. The spiritual component and preferences of Indians include the fact that this community believes in life after death.
The Rationale for Selecting the Population
I chose this ethnic population because it was the one that suffered from genocide, inequality, and injustice. Members of this group deserve to be heard. The government must address American Indian health before it is too late (Ashabi, 2019). Many members of this ethnic group live below the poverty line, which is one of the causes of the public health problem. A problem like cancer can only be solved by involving the whole world.
The Cultural/Ethnic Need Within the Clinical Practice and Community
The Indian peoples became part of the North American states at a lower stage of social development than the other ethnic components of their populations. Nevertheless, precisely because the history of the Indians in the new and modern times provides a vivid example of the interaction of multistage societies, it attracts the special attention of researchers (Ashabi, 2019). Of particular interest are the problems of socio-economic relations, changes occurring in the traditional culture of indigenous peoples of North America, the evolution of their ethnic consciousness, and the typology of ethnic processes. It is for this reason that justice and equality, as well as universal recognition, are the needs of these people.
The Health Issue of the Chosen Cultural Population
During a coronavirus epidemic, Indians have 2.8 times the morbidity and 1.4 times the mortality rate of whites. However, the main problem of this ethnic population is the propensity for cancer (Tobacco Use – Healthy People 2030. n.d.). Residents of modern Latin America have an unusually high incidence of smoking-related lung cancer because of the high prevalence of dangerous mutations in the EGFR gene, which they inherited from the Indians.
Lung microbiota has been found to cooperate with cancerous tumors. Adenocarcinoma uses microbes to get the immune system to give cancer what it needs. The lung microbiota has been caught collaborating with cancerous tumors. Men between the ages of 35 and 50 are most affected (Tiili et al., 2020). Over the past decade, scientists have identified genes affecting a person’s propensity to smoke, his ability to quit cigarettes, and tobacco abuse’s effects. Specifically, variations in the CHRNA5 and CYP2A6 genes, which control nicotine elimination from the body, strongly affect the chances of quitting smoking, and mutations in the AhR gene determine how badly tobacco smoke affects lung tissue.
Details of the Health Issue
The Leading Health Indicator (LHI) Priorities from Healthy People
Indicators of morbidity of the population reflect the real picture of life and allow the development of measures to protect and improve the population’s health nationally. When studying morbidity, it is necessary to consider that advances in science increase morbidity rates because they allow us to detect diseases in earlier stages to make diagnoses that previously did not exist. The nature, structure of diseases, and knowledge of them (etiology, pathogenesis) reflect the classifications of diseases, injuries, and causes of death, which are periodically revised. If the community pays attention to the problem of cancer incidence, many people can be saved.
The Reason Behind Selecting the Health Issue
The incidence of cancer and deaths from cancer are rising rapidly worldwide. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimates that 18.1 million new malignancies will be identified in 2018; 9.6 million people on Earth will die from cancer (Çetin et al., 2020). Overall, 1 in 5 men and 1 in 6 women will get cancer during their lifetime (Çetin et al., 2020). Men are more likely to die of cancer, one in eight; women are less likely, one in eleven. The total number of people living after a cancer diagnosis within five years is 43.8 million (Çetin et al., 2020). This problem undoubtedly requires attention, which is why it was chosen.
The Importance of the Health Issue
Environmental factors and environmental pollution are serious causes of the growth of cancer. People should pay attention to this problem because by solving environmental problems, humanity can reduce cancer incidence. The more people know this, the better the chance of winning. Another factor is tobacco smoking, and people must take responsibility for their health. It is very important to focus on this problem because many people do not know what causes cancer and how to protect themselves.
Clinical Impact
The Relation of the Content to Clinical Practice in General
This material is directly related to clinical practice as it examines the incidence of disease in the population, its causes, and the solution to the problem. The population’s health is one of the main conditions of social and economic development. It is necessary to convey knowledge about cancer to people to prevent further problems. It is worth mentioning that more attention to this problem will improve clinical practice, develop new methods to combat the disease, and thus come closer to solving the incidence of cancer.
The Impact of the Community’s Cultural Needs and Health Issue on the Clinical Practice and Community
The cultural needs of society directly affect my field. The poor economic condition of the ethnic population, the low standard of living, and mortality rates affect morbidity in general. It is worth mentioning that inequality isolates American Indian society and prevents them from developing properly. This is the root cause of the poor health of the population. The Native American community is in disrepair, which requires immediate action.
References
Ashabi, M. (2019). Captive Nations: Measuring Economic Growth on Native American Reservations in California.
Çetin, E., Karaböce, B., Durmuş, H. O., Kılınç, O., & Orun, O. (2020). Temperature effect of HIFU with thermal dose estimation. In 2020 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC) (pp. 1-6). IEEE. Web.
Chu, C. E., Leapman, M. S., Zhao, S., Cowan, J. E., Washington III, S. L., & Cooperberg, M. R. (2023). Prostate cancer disparities among American Indians and Alaskan Natives in the United States. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, djad002. Web.
Tiili, E. M., Mitiushkina, N. V., Sukhovskaya, O. A., Imyanitov, E. N., & Hirvonen, A. P. (2020). The effect of SLC6A3 variable number of tandem repeats and methylation levels on individual susceptibility to start tobacco smoking and on the ability of smokers to quit smoking. Pharmacogenetics and genomics, 30(6), 117-123.
Tobacco use. Tobacco Use – Healthy People 2030. (n.d.). Web.