Cultural Competency

Cultural Competence in the News

Cultural competence issues just got easier to access! HRSA recently announced a new Web page: www.hrsa.gov/culturalcompetence. This user-friendly site highlights approximately 40 HRSA-supported projects on the critical subject of cross-cultural health care. This page serves as a one-stop-shop for health care providers interested in learning more about HRSA's progress in improving culturally competent health care. NHSC clinicians strive to practice culturally competent health care, so we ask that you share this information with potential recruits to our programs.

Cultural Issues

American Medical Student Association
This is page titled, Cultural Competency in Medicine, that focuses on self-assessment, how and why cultural differences influence medical care, how to work with patients and other health care influences of culture and tradition, and other topics relative to training physician(s)-in-training.
http://www.amsa.org

CDC's Office of Minority Health
http://www.cdc.gov/omh

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office of Minority Health – Racial and Ethnic Populations
This site provides definitions of and descriptions of the US racial minority populations and provides a brief history of each population. There are links to census data and to other sources of information on the populations. Select Minority Health for discussions about minority health and a menu to information regarding disparities.
http://www.cdc.gov/omh/Populations/populations.htm

CME credits
Receive 9 free CME credits while exploring cases and learning about culturally competent health care from A Family Physician's Practical Guide to Culturally Competent Care at http://cccm.thinkculturalhealth.org

Cultural Competency Assessment Tools
This site provides a limited bibliography of cultural competency assessment tools, including individual and organizational self-assessment instruments.
http://www.xculture.org/training/overview/cultural/assessment.html

Diversity Rx
Overcoming barriers to health care for a diverse immigrant population.
http://www.diversityrx.org

Ethnic Elders Care
There is an interesting array of materials on this site that touches on everything from caregiver resources to clinical information related to the impact of dementia and related mental disorders on specific ethnic groups in the United States. There are sections on Chinese, Japanese, and African American patients that provide cultural and demographic information about these populations. The sections provide a model for understanding patients' health beliefs, how to assist caregivers, and assessing the patient's ability to manage healthcare information.
http://www.ethnicelderscare.net/ethnicity&dementiatitle.htm

EthnoMed
Cultural beliefs related to illness and medication for numerous immigrant populations, including Hispanic and Latino
http://www.ethnomed.org

Free Web Course on Cross-Cultural Communication
The course introduces culture and communication sin a real-world, public health scenario. Learners must make decisions while discovering communication strategies they can employ in their daily work. The course is designed for public health professionals and may be completed at one's own pace within a 45-day period. Completions requires approximately six hours of study, however the participant can stop and reenter the course where he/she leaves off, as many times as needed.
http://www.nyhnj-phtc.org/cc

Healthfinder Espanol
This is a Spanish language site to help consumers find reliable information. It is useful to interventionists as a gateway to government agency and nonprofit sites in Spanish with resources for tested health promotion materials in Spanish. The site also has an English version and some documents are available in Chinese. http://www.healthfinder.gov/espanol

MedQIC
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed this comprehensive online resource of quality improvement information for Medicare's National Quality Improvement Priority Topics. Click on this site to find a variety of materials addressing the underserved population.
http://www.medqic.org

Office of Minority Health, HRSA
The mission of the Office of Minority Health (OMH) is to provide leadership and guidance throughout HRSA to assist the Agency to improve the health status of racial/ethnic minorities. The OMH site is a source for information on HRSA programs, as well as for publications on indicators of cultural competency.
http://www.hrsa.gov/OMH

Office of Minority Health Resource Center
The center collects and distributes information on a wide variety of health topics, including substance abuse, cancer, heart disease, violence, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and infant mortality. The Resource Center also facilitates the exchange of information on minority health issues. OMH-RC offers customized database searches, publications, mailing lists, referrals, and more regarding American Indian and Alaska Native, African American, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Hispanic populations.
http://www.omhrc.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=3103

Rand Corporation. Community-Based Approaches to Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health.
This site is provides citations, a searchable database of article abstracts, summaries of findings, and more on a number of health issues.
http://www.rand.org/health/researchareas/socio_profile1.html

Quality Interactions: A Patient-Based Approach to Cross Cultural Care
This is a certified Continuing Medical Education (CME) program for physicians and a Continuing Education Unit (CEU) program for nurses and other health care providers. It is an interactive 2-hour learning course designed to improve the ability to deliver quality care to culturally diverse patient populations.
http://www.criticalmeasures.net/cross_cultural/elearning.htm

Transforming the Face of Health Professions through Cultural & Linguistic Competence Education: the Role of the HRSA Centers of Excellence
The goal of the HRSA Centers of Excellence is to reduce disparity in the health care system by increasing the number of underrepresented minorities working in the health field.
http://www.hrsa.gov/culturalcompetence/curriculumguide

Asian Cross-Cultural Information

Hispanic

Russian

Multinational

Legal Issues

US Immigration Support
Explanation of immigration terminology and steps to citizenship
www.usimmigrationsupport.org

USCIS
United States government website of the Citizenship and Immigration Service, the most authoritative and complete information available.
http://www.uscis.gov

Health Issues

Benefitscheckup.org
Screening tool for seniors to learn if they qualify for any 1550 public or private benefit programs.
www.benefitscheckup.org

Partnership for Prescription Assistance
Helps patients access prescription assistance programs for free medicine. The call center accepts calls in English, Spanish, and 150 other languages.
www.pparx.org or 1-888-4ppanow

Needymeds.com
In additions to prescription assistance this lists disease-based assistance programs.
www.needymeds.com

Language Issues

Freetranslation.com
Instant draft quality translations for sentences you type in English into Spanish, Chinese, Russian and several European languages. Use with caution, only in an emergency, because it may not accurately convey your meaning.
www.freetranslation.com

Health Information in Multiple Languages
The National Library of Medicine provides access to consumer health information in languages other than English.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov:80/medlineplus/languages/languages.html

One of the best overall resources is the Virginia Department of Health's Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Health Care Services for Virginians Resource Guide.
http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/ohpp/clasact.asp