Racial disparities in health care are well documented, but their mechanisms are
incompletely understood. The genetic, cultural, and sociopolitical aspects of race all have the potential to contribute to the production of racial disparities in health and
health care. The Institute of Medicine panel on health disparities developed a conceptual
model to better categorize these determinants and described three broad factors as
potential sources of disparities: social determinants, access issues, and the health care
system itself (Smedley, Stith, and Nelson 2003). The cultural aspects of race may influence
each of these potential determinants of disparities in health care.
Consistent with contemporary scholarship in the racial disparities literature, we
define race as a social construct (Witzig 1996). In doing so, we note that race is multidimensional
and includes aspects such as appearance, self-identity, and culture. In
this review, we focused on those interventions that targeted the cultural aspects of race.
We also included those that used cultural signals to develop interventions within specific
ethnic groups. Our focus on culture means that we emphasized spoken language;
shared norms, beliefs, and expectations; and behavioral customs (Marks 2005). These
cultural variables represent potential targets for health care intervention.
A fundamental component of high-quality health care involves the active consideration
of culture in the care of communities of color. Various researchers have used a
number of overlapping terms, such as cultural competence, cultural targeting, and cultural
tailoring, to define strategies for addressing culture. For the purposes of this article,
we define cultural competence as the broadest rubric for the strategy of embracing
cultural variables in health care interventions. Cultural competence is a term used to
describe “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a
system, agency or amongst professionals and enables that system, agency or those professionals
to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (Cross et al. 1989). While
cultural competence often refers to the ability of clinicians to interact successfully with
patients whose backgrounds differ from the mainstream culture, the term is also used
to describe how health care systems interact with these patients. For example, the New
Mexico Department of Health Children’s Medical Services, Family Health Bureau,
implemented a multipronged systemic cultural competence program evaluated by the
National Center for Cultural Competence (U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Office of Minority Health 2003). In addition, a growing body of federal and
state laws, regulations, and standards seeks to guarantee that health systems respond to
these diverse linguistic and cultural needs by becoming culturally competent (U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health 2001).
Cultural competence is a comprehensive term that overlaps with specific concepts,
such as cultural targeting and cultural tailoring (Paalman and Sandfort 1990;
Pasick, D’Onofrio and Otero-Sabogal 1996). Cultural targeting initiates strategies at
the group level to try to reach group members who share certain values, beliefs, and
practices. Cultural tailoring is a term sometimes used to refer to individualized programming
that takes into account participants’ personal preferences (Kreuter and
Strecher 1996; Schneider et al. 2001). Much of the research on cultural targeting and
cultural tailoring published in the behavioral science literature focuses on proximate
outcomes, such as participants’ reactions to various methods of intervention (e.g., the ability of Asians to relate to Asian photos rather than white photos in an educational
pamphlet), with less robust evaluation of the impact of these interventions on functional
health outcomes.
All of the concepts of cultural competence can be invoked to develop novel interventions
in the health care setting. The application of cultural competence in health
care interventions can be broadly conceptualized as cultural leverage. We suggest
that cultural leverage is a focused strategy for improving the health of racial and ethnic
communities by using their cultural practices, products, philosophies, or environments
as vehicles that facilitate behavior change of patients and practitioners.
Building on prior strategies, cultural leverage proactively identifies the areas in
which a cultural intervention can improve behaviors and then actively implements
the solution. Cultural leverage is a process whereby the principles of cultural competence
are deliberately invoked to develop interventions; it has the potential to operate
at multiple levels throughout the health care delivery process. As we consider
individuals, their communities and the means by which they access the health care
environment, culture becomes central: factors such as language, family norms, and
sexuality shape the framework through which health care is accessed.
To date, systematic reviews have considered interventions to narrow health care
disparities from the quality improvement literature (Jenkins et al. 1999), the literature
regarding cultural competence of health care providers (Beach et al. 2005), and
the literature focused on specific health conditions (Hill et al. 1999; Sehgal 2003).
Each of these reviews considers an individual area in which cultural leverage might
be used. No recent reviews of health disparities interventions have considered the
broader concept of cultural leverage that would bring together the literature from
multiple fields and provide insight from a societal and policy perspective. This particular
review examined a broader range of interventions that used cultural aspects
of race to (1) modify the health behaviors of individuals within communities, (2)
increase access from communities to the existing health care system, and (3) amend
or transform the health care system to better serve patients of color and their communities.
We conducted this review with policy makers and administrative leaders in
mind, lending insights and describing practical tools to those seeking to improve the
approach of the health care system to communities of color.