Order the Revised Pocket Guide Promoting Cultural Competence in Communications with Cancer Patients   The revised edition of the Cultural Competence in Cancer Care: A Health Care Professional's Passport pocket guide is about 50% longer than the first edition. It now includes enhanced descriptions of the populations discussed in the original publication plus a new chapter on “Appalachians: Rural Americans." download order form read press release

Subjects Covered Include . . .

This Pocket Guide takes the Health Care Professional on a cross-cultural journey to increase awareness, knowledge, attitude, and skills while working with disadvantaged and racial/ethnic patients and families. These families are encountered in a variety of primary care settings including community health centers, outpatient clinics, private medical offices, and hospitals.

Before starting this Journey, it may mean unpacking and selecting two different suitcases (personal culture and the culture of medicine).

On this journey, the Health Care Professional must strive to learn more about a specific culture and how this culture views health, illness, and cancer while utilizing health care systems. This stop includes taking the time to explore the culture, literature, and history of racial/ethnic and disadvantaged groups, while focusing on how group values of each culture influences the health behaviors of patients and their families. Understanding health practices and beliefs are most significant during clinical visits.

This stop introduces you to the issues that different minority and medically underserved populations in the US encounter. These populations include African Americans/Blacks; Latinos/Hispanics; Native Americans: American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs); Asians and Asian Americans; Native Hawaiian and other Pacific island populations; and Appalachians: rural Americans. The issues that this resource addresses are access to cancer care; tobacco use and its impact; the impact of the disease of cancer on the population; cultural and language barriers; and cross-cultural barriers.

Critical stops on this cultural journey were to encourage you to develop assessment skills that will assist you in ensuring that the cancer care you are providing is relevant to the needs of racial/ethnic patients in your practice. These include acquiring new language skills, using translation services and trained interpreters, taking effective histories, including traditional healers in the therapeutic process, and when appropriate, learning new negotiation strategies, conducting home visits, and becoming knowledgeable of community referrals.

Upon returning home from this cross-cultural journey, the Health Care Professional may wish to consider changes to the clinic environment that may make the surroundings more comfortable for patients from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds.

About the Authors . . .

Pat Matthews-Juarez, PhD, is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Development, Associate Director HRSA/HBCU, Center of Excellence, and Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, in the School of Medicine at Meharry College of Medicine. She was the Administrator for the Drew-Meharry-Morehouse Consortium Cancer Center and the National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer (NBLIC) headquartered at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (Drew) from January 1988- October 1996.

Armin D.Weinberg, PhD, is Director of the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center and Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Weinberg is co-founding Chair of the Intercultural Cancer Council. This national consortium was an outgrowth of the Biennial Symposia on Minorities, the Medically Underserved & Cancer, which Dr. Weinberg has co-directed since 1991. Dr. Weinberg serves on various national committees for cancer prevention and control activities that focus on health disparities among racial/ethnic and disadvantaged groups.