The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #59977

Arnab Mukherjea, MPH¹, Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP², Carol Allen, MA², and Cynthia Salinas, MD³. (1) School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 2640 Dwight Way #102, Berkeley, CA 94704, 510-647-3455, amukherjea@alum.calberkeley.org, (2) Center for the Heatlh Professions, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 410, San Francisco, CA 94118, (3) Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 1001 Potrero Avenue, Building 83, San Francisco, CA 94110

Objective: To describe the effectiveness of cultural competency education programs for health professionals. Context: Health disparities have in part been linked to differential attitudes and knowledge of health professionals towards diverse ethnic and cultural groups. However, little is known about the structure, content, and effectiveness of cultural competency programs. Methods: A systematic literature review of cultural competency education programs for health professionals, specifically medicine and nursing, was conducted. Inclusion criteria included articles written in English, describing curricular programs, and including a quantitative assessment of learner attitudes, knowledge or skills. Selected articles were independently abstracted by two reviewers for duration of curricular experience, educational objectives, teaching methods, and evaluation results. Studies were assigned a quality score based on program design, duration of educational intervention, number of participants, and outcome measurements. Results: Fifteen articles met inclusion criteria. All studies relied on subjective self-administered surveys to measure learning outcomes. 64% focused on medical trainees and the remainder focused on nursing students or nurses. The majority (79%) of learning objectives only addressed attitudinal change; 50% focused on knowledge-based objectives and 29% on skill acquisition. Conclusions: There is a need for consensus about core competencies in cultural competency education and for objective measurements of educational outcomes. Research is needed to link cultural competency curricula to care delivery, patient satisfaction, and health outcomes. Furthermore, effective cultural competency programs need to be implemented and evaluated in other academic health care professions institutions, including other primary care disciplines and schools of public health.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the audience will be able to:
• Describe current literature assessing cultural competency programs for health professionals.
• Discuss the necessity for core competencies and objective measure of cultural competency program evaluation.
• Develop a cultural competency model which address the limitations of existing programs.

Keywords: Cultural Competency, Health Workers Training

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.