Cultural Humility and Cultural Competency
HPSM is committed to supporting our network of providers with tools to ensure culturally appropriate services.
At the individual level, cultural awareness will ensure that HPSM members—your patients—feel heard, understood, and supported in their healthcare experience. At the community level, culturally informed care can help reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
Definitions
Cultural Humility
An ongoing practice of self-reflection in order to better understand one’s biases and privileges, manage power imbalances, and maintain a stance that is open to others in relation to aspects of their cultural identity that are most important to them. Strategies for practicing cultural humility include:
- Practicing self-reflection, including awareness of your beliefs, values, and implicit biases
- Recognizing what you don’t know and being open to learning as much as you can
- Being open to other people’s identities and empathizing with their life experiences
- Acknowledging that the patient is their own best authority, not you
- Learning and growing from people whose beliefs, values, and worldviews differ from yours.
Cultural Competency
A developmental process in which one achieves increasing levels of awareness, knowledge, and skills along a continuum, improving one’s capacity to work and communicate effectively in cross-cultural situations. Strategies for practicing cultural competency include::
- Learning about your own and others’ cultural identities
- Combating bias and stereotypes
- Respecting others’ beliefs, values, and communication preferences
- Adapting your services to each patient’s unique needs
- Gaining new cultural experiences
HPSM Network Resources
HPSM holds trainings for providers on cultural humility and cultural competency occasionally. To receive invitations, please make sure we have the best email and fax phone number to reach you. You can update your info here.
To review past presentations, please visit our Provider Learning Lab.
HPSM Resources
- FREE: Continuing Medical and Dental Education Credits Available (No Longer Available)
- Interpreter Services
- Maternal Health Disparities
Cultural Awareness
Cultural Competency
- A Physician’s Practical Guide to Culturally Competent Care (Think Cultural Health)
- Cultural Competency Overview (Good Practice)
- Cases on Culturally Competent Care (Markkula Center for Applied Ethics)
- Improving Patient Engagement With Cultural Competency (Quality Interactions)
Cultural Humility
- Cultural Humility at Work and Leadership (San Mateo County)
- The 5Rs of Cultural Humility (Society of Hospital Medicine)
Disability Awareness
- Access To Medical Care For Individuals With Mobility Disabilities (US Department of Justice)
- Disability Awareness & Sensitivity Training (Molina Healthcare)
- Disability Awareness: How to improve communication and care for patients with disabilities (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia)
- Practical Strategies for Improving Disability Awareness in Healthcare (Quality Interactions)
- Preventive Cancer Screenings For People with Disabilities (HPSM)
Limited English Proficiency/Health Literacy
- Effective Communication with LEP Populations (Quality Interactions)
- Find Training, Health Literacy (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- LEP Cultural Competency [Event Recap + Q&A] (Quality Interactions)
- What Is Health Literacy And Why Is It So Important? (Quality Interactions)
LGBTQIA+
- Collecting REaL/SOGI Data with Cultural Competency (Quality Interactions)
- Cultural Competence Webinar Series (Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality)
- Health Equity & Healthcare for LGBTQ Populations (Quality Interactions)
- The Importance of Pronoun Use in Healthcare Settings (Quality Interactions)
- LGBTQ Health, Diversity & Inclusion (American Medical Association)
- SOGIE: The ABC’s of LGBT+ (San Mateo County)
Mental Health
- 6 Culturally Sensitive Ways to Approach Mental Health (Quality Interactions)
- Advancing LGBTQ+ Mental Healthcare Through Cultural Competency (Quality Interactions)
- Cross-Cultural Care in Mental Health & Depression: Why Cultural Competency Training Matters (Quality Interactions)
- Improving Cultural Competency for Behavioral Health Professionals (US Department of Health & Human Services)
- Why Is Culturally Sensitive Therapy Important? (Quality Interactions)
Oral Health
- Cultural Competency and Implicit Bias in Oral Healthcare (Quality Interactions)
- Multicultural Issues in Oral Health (National Institute of Health)
- Oregon Dental Pros: What to Know About Cultural Competency for License Renewal (Quality Interactions)
- Why Provide Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Oral Health Care? (Think Cultural Health)
Vaccine Hesitancy
- Addressing vaccine hesitancy (National Institutes of Health)
- How to have a patient-centered discussion about COVID vaccines (Stanford)
- The 5As: A practical taxonomy for the determinants of vaccine uptake (National Institutes of Health)
- Vaccine hesitancy: A growing challenge for immunization programmes (World Health Organization)
Other Resources
- Cultural Barriers in Healthcare & Communication Techniques to Explore Them (Quality Interactions)
- Diversity and Equity Council (San Mateo County)
- Embracing Cultural Diversity in Healthcare: Opportunities and Challenges (Quality Interactions)
- Explaining Cultural Competence vs Cultural Awareness (Quality Interactions)
- Using Person-Centered Language (Resources for Integrated Care)