Cultural competency

As the health sector moves towards addressing prevention, the social determinants of health, and a better system of care, applying cultural competence has become a strategy to provide more equitable and higher quality health care. Cultural competence has to occur at both the organizational level and at the level of the individual provider in order to be successful in meeting the cultural and linguistic needs of diverse communities. The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (The National CLAS Standards) offer an important framework for how to advance health equity. These standards and the methods for their implementation are discussed in the chapter.