Laurie L. Shanderson and Maryam Hussain, Richard Stockton College, USA
Abstract: In the United States, ethnic and racial minorities comprise one third of the U.S. population and will make up more than 54% by 2050. Coupled with this statistic is the fact that in 2008 health services provided over 14 million jobs and by 2018 another 3.2 million new jobs will be created in this field. It is widely accepted that both the changing demographic and associated health disparities of these populations present a significant challenge for health care professionals relative to providing care that is culturally competent. Cultural competence is a quality contemporary health workers must possesses in order to avoid the misdiagnosis, mistreatment, cultural misunderstanding and lack of communication. Without cultural competent care, disparities in care will perpetuate. The process of preparing culturally competent workers is critical for institutions which provide related degree options. Educational programs for future health professionals must foster cultural awareness and support culturally sensitive care. As a result, the authors have concluded that preparing and training culturally competent students is critical to address these needs and must be accomplished via creating curriculum that considers this important fact. The findings and conclusions presented in this research should be considered when developing health service programs and curriculum which need to train culturally competent health service workers in order to meet the influx of health service related jobs. To make cultural competence relevant to curriculum and program development, we linked a cultural competency continuum that identifies the levels of cultural competency (cultural destructiveness, cultural incapacity, cultural blindness, cultural precompetence, and cultural proficiency) to well established health science curriculum. This situates cultural competence and proficiency in alignment with core theories and concepts found in undergraduate health service baccalaureate programs. A model* integrating the cultural competency continuum with the components of standard health science curriculum and program development is presented.
Keywords: cultural competence, health sciences, cultural competence continuum, curriculum development
*Model of cultural competency adopted from Engebretson, Mahoney and Carlson (2008).
