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Answer to #1
Among African Americans, self-reliance is highly valued and may lead to delay in seeking care or minimization of symptoms. Furthermore, an attitude that fate determines wellness may restrict medical visits. When a doctor's care is sought, it is usually for treatment of symptoms (often after home remedies have been tried) rather than for prevention of illness and health maintenance. Many blacks are present-oriented, and flexible scheduling and on-time policies may be helpful. Some African American clients feel patronized by nonblack providers and may choose to suffer at home rather than submit to humiliation. Others may be suspicious or hostile when working with nonblack health care professionals. Such attitudes are rarely directed specifically at the health care worker; instead, they are an adaptation to what is perceived as a prejudicial society. Some African Americans may not consider themselves active participants in their interaction with providers and may not communicate needs or questions. This is sometimes done to test the competency of the provider, who is expected to diagnose without help from the client. It may also be a reflection of the belief that their health care is out of their control, up to luck or destiny
Answer to #2
a
Answer to #3
Pica, the practice of eating nonnutritive substances such as clay, chalk, and laundry starch, is one of the most perplexing of all food habits practiced by African Americans, whites, and other ethnic groups. Studies have determined that pica is most often practiced by black women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and that rates are unchanged since the 1970s. In rural regions the substance ingested is usually clay. In urban areas, laundry starch is often the first choice, though instances of women who ate large amounts of milk of magnesia, coffee grounds, plaster, ice, and paraffin have also been reported.
Pica may result in anemia among pregnant women and newborns. Other possible problems include excessive weight gain (from laundry starch), aggravated hypertension (from the sodium in clay),
iron-deficiency anemia, and hyperkalemia. Furthermore, over-the-counter remedies for the gas and constipation that can accompany pica may be harmful during pregnancy.
Answer to #4
c
Answer to #5
Even before West Africans were brought to the United States, their food habits had changed significantly due to the introduction of New World foods such as cassava, corn, chiles, peanuts, pumpkins, and tomatoes during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The slaves brought a diet based on these new foods and native West African foods, such as watermelon, black-eyed peas, okra, sesame, and taro. Adaptations and substitutions were made based on available foods. Black cooks added their West African preparation methods to British, French, Spanish, and Native American techniques to produce American southern cuisine, emphasizing fried, boiled, and roasted dishes using pork, pork fat, corn, sweet potatoes, and local green leafy vegetables.
Answer to #6
a
Answer to #7
At the turn of the twentieth century, depressed conditions in the South and industrial job opportunities in the northern states prompted more than 750,000 African Americans to settle in the Northeast and Midwest. Most were young men, and the majority moved to large metropolitan areas, such as New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The influx of southern blacks was resented by both whites and the small numbers of middle-class blacks who had been well accepted in the northern cities. Laws that established racial segregation were enacted for the first time in the early 1900s, resulting in inner-city African American ghettos.
Because of poor economic conditions throughout the country, there was a pause in African American migration north during the Great Depression. The flow increased in the 1940s, and in the following thirty years more than 4 million African Americans left the South to settle in other regions of the country. This migration resulted in more than a change in regional demographics. It meant a change from a slow-paced rural lifestyle to a fast-paced, high-pressured, urban industrial existence.
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