According to Fay’s (1996) multicultural philosophy of social science, there is a need to develop perspectives that consider the impact of cultural and social factors to the development and role of social institutions. Therefore, there is a need to understand and address issues in the context of the society that they develop in and therefore the solution to issues can only become effective if they are able to meet the social and cultural factors to be considered. The importance of this perspective was supported by the NFIMR’s (2001) assessment of existing programs addressing the issue of infant mortality in the last ten years.
According to the study, there is a disparity in the level of infant mortality considering the medical interventions and technology available today (CPHN, 2003). The study concluded that health professionals should consider the significance of non-medical factors deterring the effectiveness of infant mortality measures. Furthermore, development of new nursing standards have emphasized the need to institute on a community level health objectives to be able to create support networks as well as greater health proficiency among the public (Royal College of Nursing, 2006).
In such a framework, the nursing practitioner acts as a coordinator, communicators and support to community programs rather than being the sole primary health professional. This type of collaborative role supports the idea of nursing professional not only as health officers but considers them as directly part of the community rather than part of it because the professional is part of the health community that is a social institution (Friedman et al, 2003).
The main vehicle of the programs is the education of pregnant mothers regarding the risk of infancy health risks which will include healthcare, discussion of non-medical related factors that can increase risk factors and the management of these risk factors during infancy. This is to afford the programs a structure flexible to both instruction and exchange. Considering Stanhope and Lancaster’s (2004) perspective on public health nursing and education, the program can be characterized to emphasize constructivism as the approach to learning.
Constructivism is a learning approach that considers the cultural background of the learner and the interaction of the learner not just with his environment but also with other learners. The program will include interactive activities to reinforce knowledge and the parallelization to real life situations. Piaget (1950) suggested that interactive activities in the learning process are what serve to be the basis by which a person accumulated knowledge.