Order Number |
54E6G324245 |
Type of Project |
ESSAY |
Writer Level |
PHD VERIFIED |
Format |
APA |
Academic Sources |
10 |
Page Count |
3-12 PAGES |
Cultural competence can be described as the ability of understanding, communicating, and interacting efficiently with people across cultures (Schouler-Ocak et al., 2015). Cultural competence comprises the process of
one being aware of their own view of the world based on their cultural practices and traditions, as well as developing positive attitudes towards the difference in cultures of others (Allison et al., 2016). Cultural
competence is an important aspect of healthcare because cultural practices directly impact health care practices (Venters et al., 2019). African immigrants often find themselves in situations of cultural dilemmas
because of the differences in culture between their original areas of residence and their new ones (Price et al., 2015).
The main problem witnessed on the project site is the lack of cultural competence among health care providers regarding African immigrants. This problem negatively affects the health care experience of African
immigrants (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019). Because of the gap in cultural incompetence, there is a huge disparity in the quality of health services received by the African immigrant population as compared to other population
groups in United States (Clough et al., 2013). Evidence points to the fact that the African immigrant population has a lower health score and patient outcomes as compared to other groups with less than 18% of those
admitted showing improved results over the course of their recovery (World Health Organization, 2020).
Knowledge gaps existing in practice causing cultural incompetence needs to be addressed because it violated the healthcare sector’s goal of ensuring fairness and equality in the access to services regardless of ethnic
or racial orientation (Allen et al., 2012). As the World Health Organization explains, the health care sector aims at ensuring that everyone can be as healthy as possible, including the African immigrants (World Health
Organization, 2020). The lack of cultural competence among health care providers that leads to African immigrants having poor health experiences violates this goal. The solution put forth by this project is the
development of a cultural training program for African immigrants. This program is aimed at equipping health care providers with the right knowledge and set of skills to address the health concerns of African
immigrants. The development of a cultural competence program is important because it will help in the removal of sociocultural factors that negatively impact the health experiences of African immigrants (Omenka et
al., 2020).
Background
The number of African immigrants entering and settling in the United States increases almost every year (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019). This is because African immigrants prefer moving to the United States in search of better
living conditions, better employment opportunities, and better health care services (Seck, 2015). However, African immigrants have been brought up in entirely different societies with completely different cultural beliefs
and practices (Allen et al., 2012).
The African immigrant group has unique health care needs and most of these needs are related to their cultural practices (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019). Purnell and Fenkl (2019), report that health care providers are not
devoted to finding methods of addressing these unique health care needs of African immigrants. Omenka et al. (2020), explain that the lack of cultural competence among health care providers is a crucial contributing
factor to the poor health of African immigrants. Without cultural competence training, health care providers cannot effectively tackle the health care concerns of African immigrants (Kamya, 2017).
Problem Statement
The main problem faced at the project site is the lack of cultural competence training among health care providers, specifically regarding African immigrants. The facility is a primary care clinic in Garland, Texas that
attends to various groups of people and the African immigrant’s group is one of them. However, the African immigrant group is different in terms of their health care needs since most of their medical needs are related to
their culture (Asare & Sharma, 2012). The staff have not received formal training on addressing the needs of this population, therefore they cannot deliver health services that address the cultural, social, and linguistic
needs of the African immigrant group. This results in poor health conditions for African immigrants. There are several resources available that are not being used, and this project addresses to address these gaps.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the failure of health care providers to administer effective health care services to African immigrants puts the group at an increased risk of getting sick
(CDC, 2021). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that this has been clear, especially during the COVID-19 period as many African immigrants have suffered from and died of COVID-19 (2021).
The proposed solution is the development of a cultural competence training program for the health care providers. This program is aimed at enabling the health care providers to gain the knowledge and techniques they
can employ to provide quality health care services to African immigrants.
PICOT Question
In healthcare workers caring for African Immigrant groups (P), how can how can an effective cultural competence training program (I) compared to no training program (C) be developed to improve the resource
allocation and referrals for African Immigrants (O) in less than 4 weeks (T).