Cultural Competency

CIHS strives to promote culturally and linguistically competent service delivery systems to address growing diversity, persistent disparities, and health and behavioral health equity through design, implementation, and evaluation.

Check out the CIHS eSolutions article: Integrated Care for Minority Populations and read more about our fragmented and complex healthcare system, racial and ethnic minorities and persons with limited English proficiency who often seek behavioral health assistance through their primary care providers.

Resources

National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care: A Blueprint for Advancing and Sustaining CLAS Policy and Practice offers comprehensive information on each CLAS Standard. The Blueprint is an implementation guide for advancing and sustaining culturally and linguistically appropriate services within health and health care organizations. Each of the chapters within this blueprint review the Standard’s purpose, components, and strategies for implementation. In addition, each chapter provides a list of resources that provide additional information and guidance on that Standard.

Should You Talk to Someone About a Drug, Alcohol, or Mental Health Problem? is based on the Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) 42: Substance Abuse Treatment for Persons With Co-Occurring Disorders. It lists questions consumers can ask themselves to help them decide whether to seek help for a substance abuse problem, a mental health issue, or both. Urges those who answered "yes" to any of the questions to seek help and lists resources for more information.

Spanish version
English version

People with psychiatric diseases have a severely increased risk for physical morbidity and premature death from physical diseases. The Cultural diversity in physical diseases among patients with mental illnesses is a study that investigates the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diabetes (DM) and obesity in schizophrenia and depression in three different geographical areas – Asia (Japan), Africa (Nigeria) and Western Europe (Switzerland, Germany and Denmark) – and to search for possible transcultural differences in these correlations, which would also reflect the differences between low-income areas in Africa (Nigeria) and high-income areas in Europe and Japan.

Social Determinants of Subthreshold Psychotic Symptoms Among Racial & Ethnic Minorities is a report from the Center of Excellence for Cultural Competence at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI-CECC). This report underscores the increased risk for clinical and subthreshold psychotic symptoms and disorders among racial and ethnic minorities and describes the development of an integrated model of risk for subthreshold psychotic experiences and symptoms that take into account culturally relevant factors.

Enhancing Mental Health Service Delivery to Hispanics: An Online Toolkit for Eliminating Disparities. This resource consists of various print, video and audio resources designed to assist mental health agency administrators and their governing leadership, as well as direct service providers, to best attract, engage and serve Hispanics in a culturally and linguistically competent manner.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s National Healthcare Disparities Report: 2011 released in March 2012 shows that access to healthcare do not improve for most racial and ethnic groups between 2002 and 2008, the years leading up to enactment of the Affordable Care Act.

The National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED) addresses disparities in behavioral healthcare. Formed with support from SAMHSA in partnership with the National Alliance of Multi-ethnic Behavioral Health Associations, NNED supports information sharing, training, and technical assistance among organizations and communities dedicated to the behavioral health and wellbeing of diverse communities.

Integrated Care for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders Communities: A Blueprint for Action, a product of the U.S. Office of Minority Health, is based on research conducted by the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association and proceedings from a 2011 national consensus meeting of the same title. The document provides a blueprint for addressing the health and behavioral health needs of these populations through integrated care.

Workforce Capacity for Reducing Rural Disparities in Public Mental Health Services for Adults with Severe Mental Illness, a study published in the Journal of Rural Mental Health (Jan. 13, 2012) examined workforce capacity in publicly-funded mental health agencies in rural mental health service areas (MHSAs). Overall, workforce capacity in rural MHSAs varied greatly, with some areas’ workforce capacity similar to of metropolitan areas,’ while others have little to no capacity. The study asserts that better leverage of rural MHSA’s core workforce would lead to more comprehensive, higher quality services, noting that the current core workforce lacks high levels of training in specialty care or adequate access to support from urban areas. It also calls for future efforts to establish sustainable mechanisms for ongoing training, education, and support for the core workforce in rural areas and for de facto rural systems of care in general.

Availability of Asian language Substance Abuse Treatment Counselors Varies by Region, a SAMHSA Data Spotlight, indicates the number of substance abuse treatment services tailored to various Asian cultures is not distributed evenly in the United States

Resolving Differences Between Behavioral Health and Primary Care Cultures, a presentation by Beth Wrobel and Bob Franko at the National Council's 2009 Conference, communicates the importance of collaboration between primary care and behavioral health providers and how to achieve partnership.

Movilizandonos por Nuestro Futuro: Strategic Development of a Mental Health Workforce for Latinos, a report prepared by HHS’ Office of Minority Health and the National Resource Center for Hispanic Mental Health, serves as a blueprint for improving the behavioral health conditions of Latinos through workforce development. According to the report, despite constituting more than 15% of the overall population, Latinos are visibly absent from the behavioral health profession.

The Bienvenido Program trains health and mental health professionals and taps into the strengths of community health centers to create a unique opportunity for cultural bridging through reliance on community networking and team building. The program has resulted in increased engagement of Latino immigrants within the broader community.

Pathways to Integrated Care: Strategies for African American Communities and Organizations includes a set of consensus statements and recommendations for improving the health status of the country’s diverse African American population. The consensus statements and recommendations originated from an Office of Minority Health meeting of nearly 50 key leaders in health, medicine, mental health, substance use, religion, education, research, advocacy, public policy, and clinical practice.

The Alliance for Latino Behavioral Health Workforce Development created the first-ever national Directory of Latina/o Behavioral Health Training Programs. This directory supports one of the recommendations contained in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health's seminal report titled Movilizandonos por Nuestro Futuro: Strategic Development of a Mental Health Workforce for Latinos, Consensus Statements and Recommendations.

Enhancing the Delivery of Health Care:Eliminating Health Disparities through a Culturally & Linguistically Centered Integrated Health Care Approach identifies key components and considerations to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in integrated health care and specialty care settings. It is based on research conducted by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and proceedings from the national consensus meeting held in 2011, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health.

The American Indian/Alaska Native Cancer Information Resource Center and Learning Exchange ("Native CIRCLE"), provides, stimulates, develops, maintains, and disseminates culturally appropriate cancer, diabetes and health and wellness materials for American Indian/Alaskan Native educators, providers, and students. Movies and print materials sent to CIRCLE from around Indian country are reviewed by the medical director (Dr. Judith Salmon Kaur) for medical accuracy, modified if necessary, and made available for distribution to health care and community settings.

Research on mental health among American Indians/Alaskan Natives is limited due to the small size of this population. Although, existing research suggests that American Indian/Alaskan Native youths and adults suffer a disproportionate burden of mental health problems and disorders.

WEBINARS

Integrating Behavioral Health in Community and Migrant Health Centers: Motivation, Readiness, & Cultural Challenges
August 23, 2012
Presented by Tillman Farley and Jennie McLaurin

• Recording
• Farley Presentation
• McLaurin Presentation
• Transcript
• Video From Salud Family Health Centers