Challenges Faced by Health Care Providers in a Multicultural Society

1.Critical analysis of the role and power of Current Australian Media.

2.Identify the Influence of the Media in relation to Culturally Safe Care.

3.Select two Media items one Positive Contributes and one Negative Potentially detracts and Investigate how each demonstrates their potential Influence on Cultural Safety in Health Care.

The current assignment focuses on the role of Australian media in influencing the practices adopted and  health behaviour of the people. In this respect, media has been defined as powerful tool in redefining the myths possessed by the societies. However, the provision of support and health care services with respect to a multicultural society often becomes difficult. This could be attributed to the huge number of paradoxes faced by the health support service providers. In this context, the immigration of people from different cultural backgrounds within the country with diverse values and beliefs becomes a limiting factor.

The immigrants often have to deal with language barriers with respect to communicating in English. Moreover, the cultural paradoxes possessed by them may result in disagreements with the current health care sector. The choice of media also plays a crucial factor over here such as print media and social networking tools. The media have been found to have a profound effect in convincing the economy towards the right usage of the health care tools. Moreover, the media is often limited in its outreach to people. Additionally, incomplete and false information provided by the media can also hamper the culturally safe practices adopted by the people.

The Current social and print media of the Australian market bears a huge responsibility towards making the public aware about the best health care approaches. In this respect, the media bears as much responsibility towards making the public aware about health concerns and practices as for any other findings and reports. In this context, the present health care market based in Australia has to cater to the health requirement of a multicultural society. The limitations are often faced with respect to the barriers in terms of the pre-conceived notions possessed by the society regarding certain health care practices. This is further influenced by individual society and perception possessed by a certain section of the society. As suggested by Smith (2007), economic limitations often prevent few people from availing of the required health services.

The media can play an effective role in provision of the required information to the needy. This is because often limitation of knowledge possessed by a specific group of people influences them into making the wrong choices. The journalists possess a huge responsibility towards informing the people about relevant medication and sources. For the purpose of which they need to conduct effect study and research for gathering sufficient information. They need to narrow down the search to the right keywords and articles for producing an effective read to the population (Kline, 2006). Therefore, the provision of superfluous information may generate anxieties and fear in the minds of people (Brascoupé, 2009). 

The Power of Media in Redefining Myths and Health Practices

The media needs to be guarded in the presentation of its facts and interpretations. The media needs to provide an interface where open-ended questionnaire are presented to the readers.  In this context, the option is left open to them in deciding the preferred mode of action. However, the journalists cannot become the advocates of the causes by putting in a one sided view (Talbot, 2009). Therefore, to provide a proper conclusion to the facts and interpretations sufficient research and analysis are required.

In this respect, the two different forms of media have been presented over here such as social media and the print media. The social media however has added advantage for reaching to a widespread population. Moreover, people find it more comfortable in accessing internet for finding information than reading books and journals. Additionally, the second option faced a number of challenges as far as language literacy rates are concerned (DeSouza R. , 2008). Moreover, some of the journals being pricey cannot be accessed easily by the each and every one. However, internet comes in much easy and flexible packages making it s a benefit. The social media is supposed to be more powerful in bringing about a paradigm within the health cultural practices in Australia. This is because of its ability in offering a much wider platform for group discussion. This often helps in clearing up of the fog present in the minds of people related to certain health practices. The print media have often been found to present one-sided judgments regarding certain medications and practices. Thus, a balanced and comprehensive presentation of the subject is required for neutralizing the false myths and knowledge been in circulation 

Implementation of methods of cultural safety practices are believed to empower the support users of the health care services. In this respect, there is a need to understand the virtues propagated under the lineage of cultural safe practices. The culturally safe environment is defined as one, which ensures the overall well being of an individual (Anderson, 2006). This encompasses physical, mental and emotional well being of a person. The, promotions of cultural safe practices are dependent upon the concept of sharing. This refers to the sharing of knowledge and individual learning. Therefore, adopting culturally safe practices by the Australian media would mean providing sufficient space to the multicultural segment of the society. The media therefore, needs to provide proper respect to individual segments of the society and their thought processes (DeSouza R. , 2008). This provides more autonomy to the target segment of population in voicing of their opinions against any heath peril that they might be subjected.

The Choice of Media and its Impact on Health Behavior

The media can promote or enhance the cultural safety depending on a number of factors such as reflecting on the cultures, values and beliefs possessed by the multicultural society. Thus, effective measures needs to be taken to enhance active communication within the culturally diverse groups and the mediators of health services. This could be done by the presentation of sufficient and needful information to the target population group. Some of the examples could be considered over here such as the use where media role has been seen to generate increased conflict within the present population. In December 2004, there have been many speculations about the site effects of a single dose of nevirapine. The same has been seen to prevent the transmission of infection from HIV infected mother to foetus. However, a media report had suggested that the side effects of the drug have been controlled. This resulted in mixed reactions within the population by generating fear and anxieties in the minds of the people. However, the experts believed that such information might enhance the rate of neonatal infections (Brascoupé, 2009).

The social media over here possess more autonomy in empowering culturally safe practices. Some of these practices are arranging of public health campaigns as well as availability of virtual doctors. This serves as a one-stop solution to most of the problems a person might encounter in attending the required health services. Additionally, the social media also comes with the added benefits where people with similar health conditions could strike a conversation with each other. This help them in narrowing down their anxieties and acts as a stable emotional support. The social media has brought about a revolution in community and public health by providing sufficient opportunity to share relevant information (Ellen, 2006). However, the social media is not devoid of any loopholes, which may threaten the safe cultural practices. Some of these are privacy concern issues regarding the information shared by an individual with a group or community. The data sharing tools need to be optimized regarding for maintenance of the security concerns. Additionally, the social media sites providing information regarding health issues need to be neutral in its mode of address to the users. This is because use of unnecessary biasness or favouritism may lead to generation of negative feeling within the population.

There are a number of negative and positive impacts of media on the well being of people. In this respect, two such forms of media are dominant in the Australian market such as social media and the print media. Therefore, there is a need to measure the pros and cons associated with both the forms of media.

The Responsibility of Australian Media in Promoting Health Care Practices

The print media has been limited in its approach with respect to reaching out to huge number of people. Moreover, the facts presented there in are a mere summary of the present problem or situation. It may not be in lieu with the advanced research plan and may serve as a major drawback. Moreover, most of the current print media in Australia fails to provide sufficient coverage current and emerging health practices (Zavyalova, 2012). In this respect, the role of the media as health journalists could be highlighted. This is because though there are proper rules and regulations, which may prevent the sale of illegal medicines. Recent reports have shown that illegal and prohibited drugs have been unscrupulously sold in the market. This is attributable to the unavailibity of substitute medicine or drugs in the market. The media can keep a check over the sale of such banned medicines by keeping the public informed regarding the same.

Similarly, the loopholes of social media need to be emphasized upon here, which is presentation of limited knowledge not supported by sufficient facts. This results in the generation of false ideas within the population regarding certain health implications and practices.  However, false representation regarding the use of particular group of medicines may result in a fix situation (Enemark, 2014). This may result in people either overtaking a particular group of medicine or boycotting the same. Similarly, the public ads designed for use over some of the media sites such have far and wide reach.  However, media could be effectively used for the promotion of effective campaigns. Some of these campaigns such as anti-smoking over some of the most visited social networking sites such as facebook may serve an effective purpose. This is because the young age group who are mostly under peer pressure frequents these sites. Therefore, such measures could prevent the cultural as well as the ethical practices of the people.

Conclusion

The assignment focuses on the aspect of the role of media in influencing the beliefs and values possessed by the people. These values further affect the methods and health practices adopted by them.  The Australian health care sector dealing with multicultural immigrants has to face a number of challenges in provision of the support services. In this context, a number of the barriers are faced by the health catering agencies.

The limitations are mainly based upon the cultural interest and the economical stability possessed different sectors. Most often, the organizations looking after the health needs of the people are limited in their outreach. The media can emerge as a powerful tool over there in educating the public about the correct methods and practices. Moreover, some of the social behaviours adopted by the people such as drinking and smoking can have serious effect upon the health of people. There is a need to bring to the notice of the people the harmful sides of negative health behaviour. Additionally, the resources of the Australian health market are limited in nature. There is a need is a need to direct the resources through proper channel and routes to a significant proportion of the population. Therefore, the media can play a powerful role in mitigating the problems encountered in the field of health care.

References:

al., D. e. (2009). Standards of Practice for Culturally. Journal of transcultural nursing , 257-269.

Anderson, I. C.-P. (2006). Indigenous health in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific. The Lancet , 1775-1785.

Brascoupé, S. &. (2009). Cultural safety: Exploring the applicability of the concept of cultural safety to Aboriginal health and community wellness. International Journal of Indigenous Health , 6.

DeSouza, R. (. (2008). Wellness for all: the possibilities of cultural safety and cultural competence in New Zealand. Journal of Research in Nursing , 125-135.

DeSouza, R. (2008). Wellness for all: the possibilities of cultural safety and cultural competence in New Zealand. Journal of Research in Nursing , 125-135.

Ellen, P. S. (2006). Building corporate associations: Consumer attributions for corporate socially responsible programs. ournal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 147-157.

Enemark, D. M. (2014). Knowledge and networks: An experimental test of how network knowledge affects coordination. Social Networks , 122-133.

Kline, K. N. (2006). A decade of research on health content in the media: the focus on health challenges and sociocultural context and attendant informational and ideological problems. Journal of health communication , 43-59.

Smith, J. L. (2007). Critical discourse analysis for nursing research. Nursing Inquiry , 60-70.

Talbot, L. &. (2009). Promoting health: the primary health care approach.

Zavyalova, A. P. (2012). Managing the message: The effects of firm actions and industry spillovers on media coverage following wrongdoing. Academy of Management Journa , 1079-1101