The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the tremendous health inequities coursing through America. While these disparities may be new to some, they are not new to the communities long affected by them. Medical care isn’t a one-size-fits-all undertaking. Inattention to differences in cultural backgrounds can cause real harm to a patient’s overall health. Patients tend to be healthier when their doctors and nurses take their ethnicity and race into account. That’s especially true when patient and providers share the same backgrounds, experiences, and language.
The data is so convincing along these lines that experts have a name for such symbiotic treatment: Cultural competency. A scholarly paper from George Washington University defines cultural competency as the ability of medical providers to offer care that meets the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of their patients.
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