Dsicuss about the Exploration Of The Lives Of New Yorkers In America.
The term cultural relativism refers to the understanding of a culture from their standpoint without letting the cultural understanding of the concerned participant to infiltrate the analysis (Storey, 2018). The concept of cultural relativism also underscores that ethos, values, principles and normative code have meanings in correspondence with the socio-cultural context. There is a frequent obfuscation between cultural relativism and moral relativism. Cultural relativism remains a significant framework that enables the anthropologists to derive the unknown aspects of communities and individuals of a culture. However, there is a persistent attempt to ensure that there the ideologies, personal assumptions and pre-conceived notions of the researcher does not disconcert or obfuscate the interpretation and analysis stage. These are known as ethnocentric assumptions that are influenced and informed by the cultural recipes of their own culture. This paper aims to explore and delve into the healthcare system in New Yorkers residing in the heart of America and employ the cultural relativism framework for a nuanced and holistic approach. Emic and etic perspective have strong lineage in the discipline of social science (Hoare et al., 2013).
The etic view of culture denotes the perspective of an outsider while investigating into another community or culture (Kelley, Bailey, & Brice, 2014). In US and New York specifically, the subject and problems related to healthcare has been championed by the advocates of progressive principles. However, in the recent years the Republicans have devised certain strategies and proposed policies that are being predicted to reap robust outcome. The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) have shown that in the area of healthcare expenditure, USA ranks 25th. It has been found that there is a correlation between health and other developmental aspects. According to Doran, Misa & Shah, (2013), the 1.5 million Americans who are caught by the blight of homelessness are exposed to multiple health risks and at the same time have a disproportionate representation among the largest consumers of high cost of hospital based care. Supporting the homeless in the fringes of the New York City through affordable housing would culminate to improvement in their health, reduction in the use of hospitals and a decrease in the healthcare costs. In New York, the Medicaid payments for providing nursing facilities amount to 127 USD (Betancourt et al., 2016).
Asian immigrants in USA are subjected to discrimination concerning healthcare as they find it difficult to access quality and affordable healthcare due to their ethnic minority status in a largely white American culture. Language is also a formidable barrier among the Asian immigrants in New York in accessing healthcare. The health insurance in New York acts as a major gatekeeper for the equitable access to healthcare. In USA and New York to be specific, the thrust of the government is not on equitable distribution of healthcare resources and services. It has been found that 26 per dent of the Americans are covered by the health insurance covered by the employer. It has also been found that there is a problem in the sanctioned insurance policy. Due to the barrier in accessing healthcare, Asian-Americans residing in New York resort to alternative medicine as a substitute. Asian immigrants have been reported to have low health literacy and are found to have misinformation regarding different aspects of health. Usually the first generation holds the cardinal belief on healthcare. Hepatitis B is found to be largest among the Asians (Pasick et al., 2016). Another issue pertaining to the Asian New Yorkers who are the marginalized community is that they are deliberately excluded from jobs that provides the benefit of healthcare insurance. There have been a paucity in studies that have addressed the health concerns of the Asian immigrants in New York. To ameliorate the health disparity encountered by the Asian immigrants in New York, social and health policy makers need to emphasize on the characteristics of the patient that includes ethnicity and language. The healthcare and policy researchers need to familiarize with the physical, psychological and emotional aspects of Asian Americans to understand the nuances of the heterogeneity and diversity. The focus should be to understand the origin of the healthcare issues with the aim to better address the concerns of the Asian minority in New York. Clinicians need to understand that culture plays a pivotal role in medical implications for the patient. The sensitization on healthcare issues by the physician has impact on the patient’s perceptions regarding the quality of healthcare service received by them (Marrast et al., 2014). Therefore, context is important in the doctor-patient relationship and the physicians in New York need to understand in order to facilitate a more refined clinician-patient interaction. The legal status of the citizen has implications on employment opportunities, insurance and healthcare insurance that determine their access to healthcare service.
The term emic perspective refers to the understanding of culture from the perspective of the insider. In this context, insider refers to someone who is a New Yorker an inhabitant who is accustomed with the breadth of the city. The emic perspective is premised on behavioural psychology and cultural anthological tradition of linking a cultural event with the larger socio-economic context. Someone who has been born and brought up the culture of New York and can provide lucid explanations to the distinctive cultural traits that may appear alien to an outsider. USA is a bastion of opportunities and posits the image of providing premium quality healthcare for its residents. However, often what goes ignored in the popular media is the exorbitant expenditure on healthcare that people in USA especially in New York have to endure to meet their basic healthcare requirements (Smith et al., 2015). The New Yorkers if they have to meet the GP (General Practitioners) have to seek appointment one month prior and this keeps on increasing depending on the rank of the doctor or physician. It is said that expensive healthcare is intrinsic to the American culture and New York being an expensive city to live becomes all the more difficult to survive in such condition. It was found that the expenditure in healthcare in New York higher than the per capita GDP. Much like the high consumption pattern exhibited by New Yorkers, there is a high spending on the healthcare too. Disparaging Americans for their tendency to spend high in healthcare would not be affair decision as expenditure on quality healthcare would lead to better health and longevity for the concerned individuals (Sommers et al., 2015). For Americans expenditure on healthcare is equivalent to personal consumption. They do not believe in unnecessary diets and workout as long-term solution is not the real goal. They have a penchant for quick and easy solution to their issues. They are quite determined when it comes to keeping the patient admitted in the hospital or under homecare to keep alive rather wishing the person to meet their demise. In case where less intervention might look like the most pragmatic approach to healthcare, the New Yorkers are poised to move a step ahead and embark on action that are considered as irrational to the outsiders. However, all these can easily give away to the impression that New Yorkers are weak. It might appear that New Yorkers would be in a better position if we had been more philosophical and careful with our expenditure than adhering to this consumerist attitude to healthcare. Although I am critical of the present tendency in New York, these should not be read as the metropolitan and mega cities in Europe have better public healthcare policy. On the contrary this is reflection of the fundamental cultural difference. New York and US in the broader framework have a partial single-payer system boosted by Medicare yet it is more expensive compared to its European counterparts (Spending a Lot on Health Care Is the American Way – Bloomberg, 2018).
Conclusion
The paper began with an understanding of the culture of health in New York through an emic and etic perspective that forms the crux of cultural relativism. The theory of cultural relativism pertaining to New York demonstrated that there are divergent views when a cultural insider views New York and when an outsider looks at New York. The etic view on New York critically analysed the condition of healthcare in USA, its relatively less vigorous approach towards dissemination of public healthcare and the plight of the marginalized Asian immigrants in New York. It was found that among the New Yorkers, it is the ethnic minorities who are subjected to greater exclusion and discrimination in relation to healthcare insurance. The emic perspective on the culture of healthcare provides an insight on the pattern of healthcare consumption and adoption of a neutral attitude to discuss the current situation. The emic and etic perspective on the health culture of the New Yorkers is pronounced with two divergent perspectives. The emic perspective in a way fail to grasp the plight of healthcare among the marginalized communities despite being critical of New Yorkers attitude to health in general. On the other hand, the emic perspective identifies the hierarchy in the distribution and access to healthcare, thus refining the argument.
Reference
Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I. I. (2016). Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Public health reports.
Doran, K. M., Misa, E. J., & Shah, N. R. (2013). Housing as health care—New York’s boundary-crossing experiment. New England Journal of Medicine, 369(25), 2374-2377.
Hoare, K. J., Buetow, S., Mills, J., & Francis, K. (2013). Using an emic and etic ethnographic technique in a grounded theory study of information use by practice nurses in New Zealand. Journal of Research in Nursing, 18(8), 720-731.
Kelley, L., Bailey, E. K., & Brice, W. D. (2014). Teaching Methods: Etic or Emic. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 28.
Marrast, L. M., Zallman, L., Woolhandler, S., Bor, D. H., & McCormick, D. (2014). Minority physicians’ role in the care of underserved patients: diversifying the physician workforce may be key in addressing health disparities. JAMA internal medicine, 174(2), 289-291.
Pasick, R. J., Stewart, S. L., Bird, J. A., & D’onofrio, C. N. (2016). Quality of data in multiethnic health surveys. Public Health Reports.
Smith, M. L., Stevens, J. A., Ehrenreich, H., Wilson, A. D., Schuster, R. J., Cherry, C. O. B., & Ory, M. G. (2015). Healthcare providers’ perceptions and self-reported fall prevention practices: findings from a large New York health system. Frontiers in public health, 3, 17.
Sommers, B. D., Gunja, M. Z., Finegold, K., & Musco, T. (2015). Changes in self-reported insurance coverage, access to care, and health under the Affordable Care Act. Jama, 314(4), 366-374.
Spending a Lot on Health Care Is the American Way – Bloomberg. Retrieved 21 March 2018, from https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-20/spending-a-lot-on-health-care-is-the-american-way
Storey, J. (2018). Cultural theory and popular culture: An introduction. Routledge.
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