Closing the Gap on Cultural Competency



Closing the Gap on Cultural Competency

Abstract

In modern world, cultural competency is showing up frequently in health care profession. The health care disparities extent in U.S is considerable. It is believed that it should be a top priority to achieve cultural competency in health care. Cultural competency is basically the consistency of attitude, policies and behaviors that come in an organization or system to work in cross cultural situations. The minority health professionals can take advantage in health care only if they have the cultural knowledge.

(1) Define cultural competency?

Cultural competency is a idea which is evolving in health service researches. The term is extensively used in public health services and public wellbeing in the year 1990's.It remains outstanding in current considerations to address ethnic and racial disparities in heath status and to access care. When focusing on the growing population diversity of the U.S and the perseverance of the ethnic and racial in social work, nursing, public health, health and other science disciplines are adapting the notion to deal with the current issues in working with different populace. Culture means a unique configuration of shared understanding of the world, behavioral norms and beliefs that direct everyday life is universal to a specific population sub group. Whereas the competency is a term in literature of human performance implying abilities and skills to carry out a role required in a particular context. Cultural competency means to a capability to effectively interrelate with the individuals belonging to different races and cultures particularly in the context of government agencies, human resources, on profit organization whose employees work with persons from variety of dissimilar ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The cultural competencies have four components:

Cross cultural skills

Attitude towards cultural difference

Knowledge of different worldviews and cultural practices

Attitude towards cultural differences.

Causes of disparities in healthcare are multi factorial. It is commonly agreed that genetic, economic factors and socio cultural factors as well as factors within the healthcare delivery system, contribute to the poorer health indexes in minority populations (Mead et al, 2008).

(2) What are the top barriers identified to address in cultural competency?

In health care the need for cultural competence is well established. The main barrier faced by health providers is the linguistic and cultural barrier because of which it is thought that minorities could have difficulty getting timely, appropriate and high quality care. The language barrier within the patient and provider encounter should ...