Cultural Competence In Health Care

Words: 357
Pages: 2

Cultural competence is the ability of health care professionals to communicate with and effectively provide high-quality care to patients from diverse sociocultural backgrounds; aspects of diversity include—but go beyond—race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and country of origin. Previous efforts in cultural competence education used the “categorical approach,” which meant teaching about the attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors of specific cultural groups, such as Latino patients. Whereas learning about a particular local community or cultural group can be helpful to a clinician, being presented with, and learning, a set of specific cultural beliefs and behaviors that are attributed to a particular group can lead to stereotyping