Introduction
Sharon Terry (2012) explained that a person’s Family health history can be gathered from a number of resources. These include observing choices one makes on a daily basis; legends and stories shared by older family members as well as the culture of one’s community. Precisely she advocates that everyone should endeavor to collect data pertaining to their family history because it can prolong as well as save lives (Terry, 2012).
In this module I will outline the family history of my co-worker, Sandra. Specific features that would be addressed pertain towards medical, social and common life expectancy indicators referencing the U.S. Surgeon General's Family History initiative. Section two will evaluate work place stogies for safety and wellbeing of employees and their families (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2012).
Section 1
Genogram of my co-worker’s family
Eco-map of my co-worker’s family
Medical conditions
For three generations the life expectancy for female in her maternal lineage have been 45- 75. Just one or two lived to reach 70 years of age. Most of them died in their 50’s from unexplained illnesses. Alternatively, her father’s lineage the men die early and leave women. For example her father passed at 40 years old for diarrhea when I was 10. His three brothers lived into their 70’s and the sisters survive into their 80’s
Social Conditions
A family’s social history encompasses strategies embedded in their culture enabling them to cope with life. These include occupation, religion, recreational pursuits, hobbies and favorite food (Pomeranz, 2007). In Sandra’s family tradition women were home makers. They bore children and remained at home to take care of them when season to harvest rice was over.
Generations of women were known to harvest rice from the farm in my family. Both paternal and maternal lineages were village rice farmers.
The younger generation fled farm lands towards sophisticated occupations such as teaching, nursing, policing, writing and politics. While this transition is taking place the older men and women tend to still focus on farming as their main occupation. They often participate in the social structure as village leaders and craftsmen owning their own harvesting machines and milling plants.
Religion forms a very important aspect of life for Sandra’s family who are traditional Christians. They have diverged into various denominations, but predominantly believers in a Christian Bible, God, and Jesus. Life outside of church is secular such as attending weddings, birthday celebrations, and anniversaries. Recreation is demonstrated by visiting other villages and supporting other families to develop their neighborhood. Food is usually consumed from farmlands grown by villagers. These include ground provisions, vegetables, farm raised fish, chicken, pork and beef.
Genetic tendencies
There have been no distinct genetic tendencies observed in Sandra’s family life except for the physical features of myself and siblings. There is a tendency towards small ears and flat back heads. Her mom complained of limitation in seeing and even underwent surgery becoming partially blind before her death. Stories from maternal older relatives recalled that a great grandfather became blind before death and so was one of his sons.
Section 11
According to workplace health promotion health related polices are formal or informal written statements created for the employee’s protection and health enhancement. This is achieved either at work or in the community (Centers of disease control and prevention, 2012)
This is instituted because management realizes that supportive workplace health policies are important. Largely, they affect diverse groups of workers all at the same time. The strategy of enforcing workers’ health safety measures is based on the premise that as a group effort it can be easier adopting changes together. More importantly, they can foster a unique company health culture (Centers of disease control and prevention, 2012).
Workplace Health and safety policies
My work place polices that have health impacts on employees pertain to prohibition of tobacco and alcohol use in the work environment; requesting that healthy foods is served at company meetings and events; permitting flextime to exercise or attend health programs. Specifically, workers in my organization participate in twice weekly Zumba exercises. The importance of these polices is to encourage transference of this culture towards family life. If the employee can practice these measures at work for 8 hours per day, the possibility of enabling healthier practices at home is eminent.
Ways Policies impact family life
Ways in which these polices can impact family life are tremendous. The first policy prohibiting alcohol and tobacco smoking on the job can reduce the daily intake of these substances once the individual is on the. It means that the person will drink less alcohol in on a work day than he/she would on the weekends.
Usually, alcohol and tobacco are purchased at very high costs. The way this can affect family life is by reducing the amount of money spent on these two substances. Alternatively, allocation towards better purposes within the family can be done and children provided with better food or have some entertainment money. Also smoking in the work environment can be very dangerous. Oxygen and other flammable devices can cause fires to occur.
With regards to alcohol consumption this is not only unethical, but can affect the employee’s work performance. If he/she cannot function efficiently the deployment and loss of wages is possible. Again family life is affected when workplace safe policies are violated. Adherence to work place health and safety polices help families grow.
Conclusion
Even though the work day consists of 8 or 40 hours per week many people live their job, especially, if it is one of the core professions. As such, an employer’s influence regarding health and safety measures which are transferred into the home is great. Precisely, workplace safety can be improved by identifying health needs within the environment. For example, if there seems to be an incidence of obesity among staff this could be addressed from a health and safety workplace intervention without offending the employee.
Similar polices could be put in place for women whom seem to becoming pregnant very often. Health and safety strategies regarding birth control or techniques applicable to the person’s culture can be instituted as a health and safety intervention.
Works Cited
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2012). Workplace health promotion. Retrieved October 23rd, 2012 from
http://www.cdc.gov/workplacehealthpromotion/implementation/policies.html
National Human Genome Research Institute (2012). The U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative. Retrieved 23rd October, 2012 from http://www.genome.gov/17516481
Pomeranz, K. (2007). Social History and World History: from Daily Life to Patterns of Change. Journal of World History, 18(1): 69-98
Terry, S. (2012). A Guide to Family Health History. Retrieved 23rd October, 2012 from http://www.geneticalliance.org/ksc_assets/tools/book1ga_ll022309.pdf
