Community, quality and cultural intelligence: The role of social capital in chronic disease management

Community connections are an important element of chronic disease management, particularly when providers treat patients from culturally diverse communities. To date, community partnerships have been examined at the organizational level and valued as a mechanism by which to reach diverse populations. Connection to community increases organizational presence, providing both the organization and the community with useful information about one another and help to facilitate trust in the community.

This research extends the community focus by examining the nature of community connections at the provider level and their potential benefit to the health care team. Using social capital theory, community connections are explained as ‘weak' ties, which facilitate the growth of provider cultural intelligence. Connection to the community fosters provider knowledge of socio-cultural factors associated with disease management, increasing the provider's comfort level working within varying cultural contexts. It is theorized that a) providers gain knowledge through preexisting ties to the community b) this knowledge is then distributed via existing social networks, benefiting the care team as a whole, thereby c) enhancing the quality of the patient-provider relationship.

In order to examine the relationship between community connection, cultural intelligence and quality, Data Envelopment Analysis is used to establish care team quality rankings. Care team members at each site participated in interviews exploring their existing community linkages, social networks, and cultural intelligence. Using social network analysis, both internal and external ties were documented. Finally, a Spearman's Rank Correlation was utilized to examine the relationship between quality and community connections.