Cultural Diversity In Health Care

The United States is the home of people of diverse cultural backgrounds, thus as public health practitioners, it is important to be culturally sensitive to the people of these cultures and take into consideration their various cultures. Some of this cultural diversity could be in the form of dressing, religious practices, customs, social values, family obligation and non-verbal behavior (Giger & Davidhizar, 2008). Culturally diverse populations often have complex needs related to their particular life situation or history (Queensland Government, 2007). Hence, it is expedient to consider this cultural diversity in tailoring intervention programs and strategies, so as to accommodate the complex needs. According to Fisher, Burnet, Huang, Chin & Cagney (2007) interventions using cultural leverage have been shown to reduce health disparities among various populations.

A good example is the Muslim countries that require their women to be covered up, based on their religion, the female health educators are also covered up to make the population adopt the health intervention strategy (this implies making the message more widely accepted or better still male health educators are used). Another example is the interpretation of basic public health signs in the different languages like Spanish to enable easier understanding, such as wash hands after each bathroom use, also written in Spanish.
In the City of Inglewood Senior Center, various programs have been executed and tailored to meet the needs of the diverse population within the city. The population comprise mostly of Hispanics and African-Americans. However, there are some other groups in between, like the Jews and Asians. A particular intervention program executed by the center, which is widely accepted and has been running for quite a while is the congregated meals and frozen meal