Cultural Competency: Home

Health professionals provide care to individuals from a broad range of cultural, linguistic, social, and economic backgrounds; every patient brings their own life experiences, physical history, and varied cultural perspectives into healthcare interactions. Thus, it is important for practitioners to enhance their cultural competency skills. Cultural competency has been broadly defined as “the complex integration of knowledge, attitudes, and skills that enhance cross-cultural communication and effective interactions with others”  (Henderson et al., 2018, p. 591). While it’s unlikely any person can become truly culturally competent, health providers can practice self-reflection, and aim to provide high-quality, compassionate, effective, and culturally humble care to all of their patients. Tabs in the guide focus on resources that provide insight on a wide range of patient backgrounds, and can help healthcare providers better understand the many environmental, social, cultural and economic factors that influence a patient’s health, to improve health outcomes and patient-provider trust.   

Henderson, S., Horne, M., Hills, R., & Kendall, E. (2018). Cultural competence in healthcare in the community: A concept analysis. Health & Social Care in the Community, 26(4), 590–603. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12556

The information shared on this healthcare guide is not comprehensive nor reflective of all available materials.  For more information:

• Visit Multicultural Affairs and Community Outreach page
• Search the library's resources at Discover@MWU 
• Request unowned material from our Interlibrary Loan services