Older African American Women's Views, Beliefs, and Practices of Health and Care within the Context of a Senior Community Center

The purpose of this study was to discover, describe, and analyze older African American women's views, beliefs, and practices of health and care. The reseachers predicted that care influences the health of these women in profound ways within the context of the senior community center. The domain of inquiry was the older African American women's views, beliefs, and practices of health and care within the context of a senior community center in a Midwestern city in the United States. This domain is of interest to nursing because of the increased incidence of morbidity and mortality, as well as multiple health disparities within this cultural group. There is clearly a lack of knowledge in the research literature regarding African American women and their views on their health and care. Most of the previous studies on this topic have used quantiative research designs and have focused on chronic disease processes from the health professional's or etic view. This study used a qualitative research approach and was focused on the health and care of the older African American women's view, which is the emic view. r. Madeleine Leininger’s Culture Care Diversity and Universality theory and the ethnonursing method were selected for the study as together they offer a holistic approach. The environmental context of this study included the physical, social, and cultural environment of the senior community center. Leininger’s ethnonursing research method, which includes prolonged observation-participation-reflection and informant interviewing, was used to discover patterns and themes about health, care, and healthcare decision making. The goal of the study was to understand generic, folk (emic) and professional care (etic) factors that promoted health and the healthy lifeways for older African American women and to explore ways to use both types of care to provide culturally congruent and competent care. Four major themes were discovered nd these findings led to the development of culture-specific care action and decision modes: culture care preservation and/or maintenance, culture care negotiation and/or accommodation, and culture care repatteming and/or restructuring. These modes will influence culturally congruent, safe and meaningful care for this group of African American women to promote their health and healthy lifeways.Master'sSchool of Health Professions and Studies: NursingUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117786/1/Harrington.pd