| | This section of The Provider's Guide to Quality & Culture provides data and information on health disparities and culturally competent care for four cultural groups: African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics/Latinos. The information for each group is contained in an "Informatic Sheet," available in Portable Document Format (PDF). Each sheet provides information on six areas of urgent health disparity: cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, immunizations, and infant mortality. The content in this section was reviewed and vetted by a panel of experts and practitioners. [Read more]
How to access information in this section This Informatic Sheet is a PDF file with linked sections that allow you to quickly search and print sections of the sheet. We encourage you to access the information provided in whatever order best suits your needs. You may print out the entire Informatic Sheet, a section, or even an individual page. You will note that this format has required us to build some redundancy into the information provided. For example, some of the “Adherence Factors” information provided in the Overview is repeated under the specific health areas, as relevant. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, please download a free copy.
 We hope that these Informatic Sheets will help to improve the health care provided for these cultural groups and, as a result, reduce health disparities for these groups. Cultural competence can have a real impact on clinical outcomes. Ignoring culture can lead to negative health consequences in many ways. For example, patients may not adhere to medical advice because they do not understand or do not trust the provider. Providers may not order appropriate tests or medical interventions due to cross-cultural misunderstandings.
 Please note that the categories of cultural groups included here are geographically based, but do not reflect the rich variety of cultures within the groups. We appreciate your understanding and tolerance for our need to use categories to organize the material. If you feel that we have misrepresented a group in any way, please let us know. We will take your comments and suggestions into consideration as we improve and periodically update this Web site.
In addition, it is important for health care providers to remember that each individual has a unique personal history, belief system, communication style and health-related risk factors and behaviors. What may be true about some or most individuals from a particular culture may not be true of all individuals from that culture.
Some differences to look for include: - People from rural areas may have been living a more traditional lifestyle than people who have emigrated to the U.S. from urban areas.
- Economic status and education can vary greatly among people from the same culture.
- There are important intra-region and intra-group variations among people from the same country or culture, and there may be great cultural variation among generations.
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