Position: Special Assistant to the Director

Organization: USDHHS Office of Minority Health

Location: Rockville, MD

Keywords: Cultural competence, online training/education, disaster response

 

Established in 1986 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHSS), the Office of Minority Health (OMH), serves to advise the Secretary of USDHHS and the Office of Public Health and Science on health issues affecting racial and ethnic minorities. In addition to serving in this advisory capacity, OMH supports numerous projects to promote culturally competent health care and reduce racial and ethnic health disparities.

 

In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katarina, OMH recognized the potential of expanding its work to the realm of disaster response and public health preparedness—resulting in support for the National Resource Center on Emergency Preparedness and Cultural Diversity and the National Consensus Panel on Emergency Preparedness and Cultural Diversity. Two years in the making, in the Summer of 2009 OMH launched the latest of its initiatives to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in disaster scenarios, Cultural Competence Curriculum for Disaster Preparedness and Crisis Response. This online series of training modules serves as a tangible and hands-on compliment to OMH’s existing preparedness projects. We spoke with Guadalupe Pacheco of OMH to learn more about the impetus behind the project, the nature of the online training modules, and its successes to date.

 

As Mr. Pacheco explained, Cultural Competence Curriculum for Disaster Preparedness and Crisis

Response is grounded in OMH’s National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS). The curriculum integrates principles from the three major domains of CLAS standards— culturally competent care, language access services, and organizational services—with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of care provided to racial and ethnic minorities following a disaster. The training modules are geared to crisis response workers from a range of disciplines, including social work, disaster medicine, mental health, emergency management, and public health. Mr. Pacheco indicated that racial and ethnic minorities are statistically underrepresented in these professions, reinforcing the need for additional training to enhance knowledge about communicating across cultures among service providers.

 

The four distinct training modules provide concrete guidance on how to implement promising practices for meeting the needs of diverse communities in disasters. Many of the strategies offered supplement

the recommendations of the National Consensus Panel on Emergency Preparedness and Cultural Diversity—such as how to use ethnic media as a vehicle for disseminating disaster information and methods for utilizing community and faith-based organizations as trusted community partners. As Mr. Pacheco described, the training modules are particularly unique as they include video clips depicting real life scenarios.

 

Written By: Jonathan Purtle