This article is very interesting since during this month as a Latinos some organizations are asking us to get more involve in health issues.
Just like the article describes about acculturation is one of the issues among the Latino community. For some Americans they expect every culture to assimilate the system, unfortunately for some of us is not easy. Since there are a lot factors that affects our health, first the kind of food we are use to eat in our countries is very different, the way the health systems is in this country is totally different for example in some Latino countries medical service is free for most of the population as well most of the medicines if you qualified for; another factor for health issues among Latinos is depression, etc.
Culturally the care for elderly is different from the US since Latino countries have a very difficult time to pay for others to do it and not only that but family take cares of their own family including elderly.
The American health system is sometimes hard to navigate, I had bad experiences and it didn’t matter that I have an American husband I couldn’t get health care when I really needed, I was devastated and I didn’t want to continue looking for help since Medicaid didn’t want to help me and it was very expensive my treatment. After a few months on trying to understand the system I was able to get the care I needed but some Latinos prefer not to do it and if they do it sometimes is late.
Are there also cultural differences in self care for health?
ReplyDeleteYes, we practice alternative medicine, we try anything that could be natural like tea, herbs and natural remedies. Homeopathic medicine is very common, if there is something like cancer or a sickness that has to be treated at the hospital of course people has to go with a specialist but if is something that we can do it our self we take care of it. We also have a big difference to by medicine because in the US you need a prescription for some medicines but in my country you don't need anything, maybe in the last years they are controlling more some medicines but you still able to buy it without prescription.
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