Cultural Competence Project

About Our Project

It's well known that different cultures cohabitate within the same borders and buildings. Nevertheless, there is a tangible difference among specific racial and ethnic groups related to high or low incidence of a disease, disability or death. This difference is what we call “health disparities”. Therefore, cultural competence is the ability that the health practitioner has to understand existing differences within cultures which can help us increase the quality of care.

The objective of this project is to develop an assessment tool and a cultural competence training program for healthcare practitioners at RIT Student Health Center. As Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has approximately 15,400 undergraduate and 3,250 graduate students who represent all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Moreover, it is estimated that nearly 3,300 students are from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds along with more than 2,700 international students. Thus, acknowledging these factors, RIT Student Health Center is the perfect candidate to improve their cultural awareness.

The concern for a project like this surged after web-based research, observation, and personal experience with health care services as a foreign physician. It became apparent that it is important to comprehend other cultures to achieve a better outcome and fully implement the patient-centered and quality-based care that everyone needs. 

Thus, a self-awareness online survey will be imparted to measure the needs and identify possible service gaps. Then, based on our analysis, an online cultural competence training program will be developed.