What is Cultural Competence?

"Cultural Competence" has come to represent the ability of healthcare providers to interact with patients who are different from themselves. This difference implies ethnicity, but from a broader perspective encompasses differences that include gender, race, age, religion, culture, language, education, socioeconomic status, and permutations of these parameters. Cultural competence has been described variously as knowledge, attitude, and skills about health related beliefs and cultural values, disease incidence and prevalence, and treatment efficacy. Health care providers must be able to shift from a problem- or disease-focused perspective to the human and contextual perspective of the patients who present to them. They must also be able to recognize and acknowledge their own biases, prejudices, and stereotypes. This change of perspective includes considering how patients' concerns might influence communication and clinical assessments. To succeed in this more patient-centered approach, providers must enhance the communication skills necessary to negotiate effectively and collaborate with patients to optimize outcomes that work within the patients' world.

Cross-cultural education, which aims to enhance students' personal insight and empathy with people from diverse cultures, will enable physicians to treat and communicate with their patients more effectively. Another goal is to enhance physicians' awareness of differences between the provider and the patient regarding knowledge of health and healing practices, illness perception, therapeutic options, and a greater understanding of population specific disease prevalence and health outcomes. Students also learn the clinical skills necessary to improve their interactions with underserved groups and healthcare delivery to those groups.