Describes methods for promoting health care delivery services in a rural community and justifies methods with supporting evidence.
Culturally Sensitive, Evidence-Based Strategies for Working with A Diverse Rural Population
Explains culturally sensitive, evidence-based strategies for working with a diverse rural population, including forms of communication and alternative forms of health care.
Potential Barriers to Health Care for A Rural Community Population
Explains potential barriers to health care for a rural community population and considers the expected outcomes if barriers are not overcome, or describes evidence-based strategies to overcome barriers.
Recommended Communication Strategies and Techniques for An Interdisciplinary Health Care Team Working with A Rural Community Population
Recommends evidence-based communication strategies and techniques for an interdisciplinary health care team working with a rural community population and explains how good communication will result in quality health care outcomes.
Chromosomes are composed of DNA. (Bottom) DNA has the structure of a spiral staircase. A gene is a segment of DNA.
Each gene has its own designated place on a particular chromosome. Today, there is a great deal of enthusiasm about efforts to discover the specific locations of genes that are linked to certain functions and developmental outcomes (Johnson, 2017; Sutphin & Korstanje, 2016). An important step in this direction was taken when the Human Genome Project and the Celera Corporation completed a preliminary map of the human genome—the complete set of developmental instructions for creating proteins that initiate the making of a human organism (Brooker, 2015). Completion of the Human Genome Project has led to use of the genome-wide association method to identify genetic variations linked to a particular disease, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, or Alzheimer disease (Cho & Suh, 2016; Hou & others, 2016). To conduct a genome-wide association study, researchers obtain DNA from individuals who have the disease and those who don’t have it. Then, each participant’s complete set of DNA, or genome, is purified from the blood or other cells and scanned on machines to determine markers of genetic variation. If the genetic variations occur more frequently in people who have the disease than in those who don’t have it, the variations point to the region in the human genome where the disease-causing problem exists. Genome- wide association studies have recently been conducted for childhood obesity (Zandona & others, 2016); cancer (Johnson & others, 2016); cardiovascular disease (Schick & others, 2016); depression (Knowles & others, 2016; Nho & others, 2015); suicide (Sokolowski, Wasserman, & Wasserman, 2016); glaucoma (Bailey & others, 2016); and Alzheimer disease (Chauhan & others, 2015; Ramos Dos Santos & others, 2016). One of the big surprises of the Human Genome Project was a report indicating that humans have only about 30,000 genes (U.S. Department of Energy, 2001). More recently, the number of human genes has been revised further downward, to approximately 20,700 (Flicek & others, 2013). Further recent analysis proposes that humans may actually have Page 40fewer than 20,000 protein-producing genes (Ezkurida & others, 2014). Scientists had thought that humans had as many as 100,000 or more genes. They had also believed that each gene programmed just one protein. In fact, humans appear to have far more proteins than they have genes, so there cannot be a one-to-one correspondence between genes and proteins (Commoner, 2002). Each gene is not translated, in automaton-like fashion, into one and only one protein. A gene does not act independently, as developmental psychologist David Moore (2001) emphasized by titling his book The Dependent Gene. Rather than being a group of independent genes, the human genome consists of many genes that collaborate both with each other and with nongenetic factors inside and outside the body. The collaboration operates at many points. For example, the cellular “machinery” mixes, matches, and links small pieces of DNA to reproduce the genes, and that machinery is influenced by what is going on around it (Moore, 2015). Whether a gene is turned “on”—that is, working to assemble proteins—is also a matter of collaboration. The activity of genes (genetic expression) is affected by their environment (Gottlieb, 2007; Moore, 2015). For example, hormones that circulate in the blood make
their way into the cell
