Dataset Information

Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland.

ABSTRACT: Norse Greenland has been seen as a classic case of maladaptation by an inflexible temperate zone society extending into the arctic and collapse driven by climate change. This paper, however, recognizes the successful arctic adaptation achieved in Norse Greenland and argues that, although climate change had impacts, the end of Norse settlement can only be truly understood as a complex socioenvironmental system that includes local and interregional interactions operating at different geographic and temporal scales and recognizes the cultural limits to adaptation of traditional ecological knowledge. This paper is not focused on a single discovery and its implications, an approach that can encourage monocausal and environmentally deterministic emphasis to explanation, but it is the product of sustained international interdisciplinary investigations in Greenland and the rest of the North Atlantic. It is based on data acquisitions, reinterpretation of established knowledge, and a somewhat different philosophical approach to the question of collapse. We argue that the Norse Greenlanders created a flexible and successful subsistence system that responded effectively to major environmental challenges but probably fell victim to a combination of conjunctures of large-scale historic processes and vulnerabilities created by their successful prior response to climate change. Their failure was an inability to anticipate an unknowable future, an inability to broaden their traditional ecological knowledge base, and a case of being too specialized, too small, and too isolated to be able to capitalize on and compete in the new protoworld system extending into the North Atlantic in the early 15th century.

SUBMITTER: Dugmore AJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3309771 | biostudies-other | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundPeyronie's disease has an impact on men's mental and physical health.AimWe sought to translate the Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire into Danish, adapt it to the Danish cultural setting, and test it in a Danish population.MethodsTranslation of the Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire was performed according to the guidelines for adapting health status measures for use in languages other than the source language by Beaton et al. The validated American Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire was developed to monitor patient symptoms after an intervention and to inspire a subsequent dialogue about physical and psychological symptoms with a healthcare provider, thereby allowing the patient and the healthcare professional to choose the best treatment. The expert committee agreed on a Danish version after cross-cultural adaptation. The Danish Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire was sent by electronic mail to a preselected group of 41 men with Peyronie's disease.OutcomesAfter completing the questionnaire, 32 men participated in a video interview regarding the questionnaire and were asked to identify any problematic fields or areas open to misunderstanding.ResultsThe Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire underwent major modifications in light of the comments of the first 10 respondents. Thereafter, only minor changes were made until data saturation was reached after 27 of the 32 respondents had been interviewed. In 87% of respondents Peyronie's disease bothered from the last time they had intercourse, and 93% of the men experienced being bothered by having intercourse less often. Peyronie's disease made 73% of respondents feel bodily discomfort, and 88% had intercourse less often than they used to have due to Peyronie's disease.Clinical implicationsThe Peyronie's Disease Questionnaire is a valuable tool in the crucial task of addressing Peyronie's disease, providing insight into the mental and sexual health problems as well as physical challenges faced by patients.Strengths and limitationsThe interviewer's modest experience in conducting interviews is believed to have been duly compensated for by continuous and accumulating learning-while-doing process because the same interviewer conducted all of the interviews and did so consecutively.ConclusionsDanish men expressed satisfaction with the questionnaire and found it valuable as a tool when visiting the doctor for the first time.

Project description:IntroductionMeasuring nurses' cultural competence is an important aspect in monitoring the acceptable quality in multicultural populations, and is a means for efficient modification of the educational process of nurses based on this assessment.PurposeThe goal of this article is to offer a preliminary assessment of the cultural competence of nurses based on a Polish-language and -culture version of the Nurse Cultural Competence Scale (NCCS).Research methodAn adaptive and diagnostic cross-disciplinary concept was used in the research. Two hundred thirty-eight professionally active nurses in the southeast region of Poland took part in this study. The NCCS-Polish version (NCCS-P) questionnaire was used after linguistic adaptation and analysis of psychometric properties.ResultsModerate levels of competence in the Cultural Knowledge Subscale (M = 3.42) were found in the group of nurses studied. The results indicate lowest competency levels in the Cultural Skill Subscale (M = 3.14). The highest values were obtained for the Cultural Awareness Subscale (M = 3.98) and the Cultural Sensitivity Subscale (M = 3.72). The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for the NCCS-P scale was 0.94, with the subscale values ranging from 0.72 to 0.95. Factor validity analysis of the Polish adaptation of the NCCS-P scale pointed to its four-factor structure. The Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin sampling adequacy test was 0.905, and the Bartlett test of sphericity result was χ2 = 5755.107; df = 820; p<0.001. The four-factor structure is affirmed by the Kaiser criterion and the scree test result.ConclusionsThe NCCS-P psychometric properties were highly reliable and significant because of the opportunity for using them for research in Poland.Practical implicationsThe scale can be used in intercultural research for comparing cultural competence of nurses, including Polish ones. This scale facilitates the precise monitoring of cultural competence among nurses and nurse managers, which may help in developing nursing policies geared toward a commitment to expanding cultural competence.

Project description:Purpose: Health care disparities exist for people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Addressing the cultural competence of health care providers could limit these disparities. The aim of this study was to improve cultural knowledge of and humility regarding pain in a CALD community. Method: This interpretive description qualitative study used focus group discussions (FGDs) to generate ideas about how South Asian culture could influence how health care providers manage pain. A total of 14 people with pain and of South Asian background (6 women and 8 men, aged 28-70 y) participated. Two investigators independently analyzed the data. This process involved repeatedly reading the transcripts, then manually sorting the key messages into categories. The investigators compared their categorizations and resolved differences through discussion. Next, similar categories and concepts were grouped into ideas (potential themes). These ideas, along with supporting categories and verbatim quotes, were presented to the full research team for feedback. After compiling the feedback, the ideas formed the thematic representation of the data. Results: The data from the FGDs revealed how pain management could be culturally adapted. The FGDs generated four themes about South Asian cultural perspectives that could influence the pain management experience for people living with pain: (1) cultural and linguistic impediments to communication, (2) understanding of pain in terms of the extent to which it interferes with function and work, (3) nurturing or personal attention as a marker of good care, and (4) value attributed to traditional ideas of illness and treatment. Conclusion: This study demonstrates how engaging with CALD people living with pain can lead to improved cultural knowledge and humility that can form the basis for adapting pain management. Through this process, it is more likely that a meaningful and client-centred pain management plan can be developed.

Dataset Information

Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets