Selected Topics - Culture and Health

• UNSW Research Centre on Ageing and Retirement

Events

• School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW - Upcoming Events

Global policies and related documents

Reports, guidelines and projects

• Assessing Language Interpretation Capacity Among New Hampshire Health Providers
  This report identifies and addresses language service issues for New Hampshire residents who have limited English proficiency and / or who are deaf or hard of hearing. It suggests a set of steps to reduce the gap between medical interpretation needs of patients and the health care system's capacity to serve those needs. It emphasises the need to provide quality care, minimize risk exposure, follow legal mandates, respond to changing demographics and help eliminate disparities.
• Best Practices in Intercultural Health
  The practice of integrating western and traditional medicines is fast becoming an accepted and ever more widely used approach in health care systems throughout the world. However, recent debates about the development of intercultural health approaches have raised significant concerns regarding regulation, efficacy, intellectual property rights, lack of cross-cultural research, access and affordability, and protection of sacred Indigenous plants and knowledge. Recognizing the global importance of this issue and the paucity of collaborative research on intercultural health, the Inter American Development Bank developed an international initiative on Best Practices in Intercultural Health. This report describes that initiative.
• Cultural competency and quality of care: obtaining the patient's perspective
  "Provision of “culturally competent” medical care is one of the strategies advocated for reducing or eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. This Commonwealth Fund report identifies five domains of culturally competent care that can best be assessed through patients’ perspectives: 1) patient– provider communication; 2) respect for patient preferences and shared decision-making; 3) experiences leading to trust or distrust; 4) experiences of discrimination; and 5) linguistic competency. The authors review the literature focusing on these domains, summarize the salient issues and current knowledge, and discuss the policy and research implications..."
• Cultural competency in health: A guide for policy, partnerships and participation
  This guide has been developed to help policy makers and managers with culturally competent policy and planning at all levels of the health system. The guide draws together evidence on programs for increasing cultural competence and research on influences and determinants of healthy living and environments, within culturally and linguistically diverse communities. It gives practical strategies for increasing cultural competency and where available, gives examples of evaluated programs at local level that aim to make a difference.
• Inconsistent Reporting of Female Genital Cutting Status in Northern Ghana: Explanatory Factors and Analytical Consequences
  "Although many cross-sectional social surveys have included questions about female genital cutting status and correlated personal characteristics, no longitudinal studies have been launched that permit investigation of response biases associated with such surveys. This study [by Elizabeth F. Jackson, Patricia Akweongo, Evelyn Sakeah, Abraham Hodgson, Rofina Asuru, and James F. Phillips] draws upon the findings of a longitudinal study of women aged 15 to 49 in rural northern Ghana. The self-reported circumcision status of women interviewed in 1995 was compared with the status they reported when they were interviewed again in 2000 after the government began enforcing a law banning the practice and public information campaigns against it were launched. In all, 13 percent of respondents who reported in 1995 that they had been circumcised stated that they had not been circumcised in the 2000 reinterview; this inconsistency reached 50 percent for the youngest age group. Analysis shows that women who said they had not been circumcised are significantly younger, more likely to be educated, and less likely to practice traditional religion than are women who reported that they were circumcised. Factors that may explain these correlates of denial are discussed, and implications for research are reviewed." [author abstract] (STUDIES IN FAMILY PLANNING 2003; 34[3]: 200–210)
• Minority Health Project, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health
  A guide to minority health events in America focused on those in and around UNC-CH
• Researching culture and health: Variables used to identify culturally diverse groups in New South Wales
  "NSW is one of Australia’s most multicultural states, with 29 per cent of residents having been born overseas and 24 per cent speaking a language other than English at home. Given that rates of death and disease and patterns of health service utilisation differ across cultural variables such as region or country of birth, a better understanding of the interactions between culture and health may enable public health programs and clinical services to be more sensitive to community needs."
• Working to Achieve Health Equity with an Ethnic Perspective: What has been Done and Best Practices (PDF) 17pg
  This document addresses issues relating to health equity and victims of racial discrimination. As in previous PAHO contributions to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR) working groups, the documents focus on the collection and analysis of health data disaggregated by racial/ethnic origins.

Educational resources

• Diversity Health Institute Clearinghouse
  "The Diversity Health Institute Clearinghouse is a central access point for information on multicultural health in Australia. Its aim is to bring together the myriad of work conducted in the area nationally. Cultural competence, refugee health, nutrition, sexual health, drugs and alcohol, mental health, ageing, and disability are just some the issues encompassed by the Clearinghouse's brief. Priority listing is given to information that is relevant to a wide range of people, is publicly accessible, and produced by reputable organisations or individuals."
• Office of Minority Health Resource Center (USA)
  The Resource Center page contains links to reference resources on minority health as well as information on other publications, conferences, funding and employment.
• Transcultural and Multicultural Health Links
  This site, which was collated by Ellen Bosman, a Librarian at New Mexico State University, contains links to a wide variety of sites relevant to the study of the relationship between culture and health.
• The Influence of Community Factors on Health: An Annotated Bibliography
  A PolicyLink Report Fall 2004 - contains summaries of more than 150 books, articles and reports on the effect of the social relationships, physical environments and socioeconomic status of communities on the health of their inhabitants.

Organisations and Networks

UN and multinational

Government

• Department of Health and Human Services: Office of Minority Health (US)
  The Office of Minority Health aims to improve and protect the health of racial and ethnic minority populations in the US through the development of health policies and programs that will eliminate health disparities.
• Department of Health, Utah (USA) Ethnic health programs
  Utah Department of Health Ethnic Health activities are dedicated to increasing access to health care and eliminating health disparities in Utah's diverse populations.

Non Government

• Alta Bates Summit Medical Centre: Ethnic Health Institute
  "The Ethnic Health Institute (EHI), as a community service of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, is engaged in coordinating health education, research, health provider training, and community outreach and awareness for the entire community, with a special focus on underserved and minority populations."
• Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum (USA)
  The aim of this organisation is to create a network for disseminating and sharing health information resources and policy issues amongst individuals and organisations that provide health services to the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the United States.
• Center for Cross Cultural Health
  This centre provides resources to assist health-care providers in their work with patients of diverse cultures. Designed as a clearinghouse and source of information, training and research on the role of culture in health, the Center is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• Centre for Culture, Ethnicity, and Health - located in Melbourne (Australia)
  The Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health is part of the North Richmond Community Health Centre in Victoria, Australia. It works with the Victorian health sector to develop solutions that improve responsiveness to cultural and linguistic diversity in Victoria.
• Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations
  The Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations (CRER) based at the University of Warwick is one of the major academic bodies in the UK for the research and teaching of aspects of race, migration and ethnic relations.
• Cross Cultural Health Care Program (Seattle, USA)
  Established in 1992, the formation of the CCHCP in Seattle was a response to an increasingly urgent need to decipher and to negotiate the diverse health care needs of the growing non-mainstream, limited-English-speaking populations. The CCHCP's approach places culture within the context of an interwoven network of relationships between language and tradition, tradition and history, history and economics.
• Diversity Rx
  Diversity Rx is a clearinghouse of information on how to meet the language and cultural needs of minorities, immigrants, refugees and other diverse populations seeking health care.
• European Centre for Minority Issues
  ECMI’s aim is to promote interdisciplinary research on issues related to national minorities and majorities in a European perspective and to contribute to the improvement of inter-ethnic relations in those parts of Western and Eastern Europe where ethnopolitical tension and conflict prevail.
• Minority Health Network
  A component of the Global Health Network, providing resources on minority health in the USA

Academic Institutions with particular focus in this area

• Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health
  This centre, at the University of Michigan, prepares students across all departments within the School of Public Health to address the public health needs of an increasingly diverse society by providing a forum for basic and applied research on racial and ethnic differences in health.

Key Conferences, conference and workshop reports

Coming conferences

Conference reports

• 26th Annual Minority Health Conference
  This conference is held annually at the University of North Carolina. The 2005 conference is entitled 'Health and the Built Environment; the effects of where we live, work and play.'

Journals, Newsletters, Forums

Bibliographies, Libraries

• Jan Ritchie's personal page

Public health bookshops

• Public Health bookshop