Cultural Humility: People, Principles & Practices

Originally developed by physicians Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-García to address health disparities and institutional inequities in medicine, the concept of “Cultural Humility” is now used in public health, social work, education, and non-profit management to analyze health disparities and create a broader, more inclusive view of the world.  Cultural Humility: People, Principles & Practices is a 30 minute documentary that mixes poetry with music, interviews, archival footage, and images of community, nature and dance to describe what cultural humility is and why it’s needed.  “Cultural Humility” is introduced as a resource for people engaged in collegial as well as hierarchical relationships to change organizational policy and build relationships based on mutual trust.  The film encourages audiences to examine power, privilege and stereotyping through the lens of interrelatedness and cooperation. It emphasizes the need to examine one’s identity and challenge ourselves through critical self-reflection. “Cultural Humility” connotes a deference of one’s own cultural beliefs and assumptions, a lifelong commitment to self-evaluation, redressing power imbalances, and developing and maintaining mutually respectful dynamic partnerships based on mutual trust. In this model, the most serious barrier to culturally appropriate care is not a lack of knowledge of the details of any given cultural orientation but health inequalities such as the lack of institutional accountability and respectful attitudes toward diverse points of view and ways of living. The film was developed to train new health professionals as well as to support those who have been practicing for many years in the field. It engages in a process of communal reflection that brings forward a range of voices, especially many young voices, to explore different aspects of cultural humility in this time when the U. S. population is growing, aging, and increasing in diversity.