Specific skills, answers, and guidance to clinical issues raised by management of patients of varied cultural and economic backgrounds. Covers the principles of cultural medicine, which medical schools are addressing in physical exam sessions, and specific diseases, disorders, and clinical entities that have genetic and cultural issues associated with them. Includes case studies and evidence-based recommendations and guidelines.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

Unit I: The Foundations: Introduction to multicultural health -- Theories and models related to multicultural health -- Worldview and health decisions -- Complementary and alternative medicine -- Religion, rituals and health -- Communication and health promotion in diverse societies. Unit II: Specific Cultural Groups: Hispanic and Latino American populations -- American Indian and Alaskan Native populations -- African American populations -- Asian American populations -- European and Mediterranean American populations -- Nonethnic cultures. Unit III: Looking Ahead: Closing the gap: strategies for eliminating health disparities.

An essential guide to clinical issues encountered during management of patients of varied cultural and economic backgrounds This essential text assists health care students and practitioners in delivering skilled and appropriate care to all patients, no matter their ethnicity, country of origin, cultural history, or access to services. Presenting need-to-know and often hard to find information on differences in access to heath care, immunization histories, disease prevalence, attitudes about health and provision of care, and much more, this resource provides practical, authoritative, and specific guidance.

As the United States population becomes increasingly diverse, the need for guidelines to assure competent healthcare among minorities becomes ever more urgent. Cross-Cultural Medicine provides important background information on various racial, ethnic, and cultural groups, their general health problems and risks, and spiritual and religious issues. Individual chapters are devoted to the special concerns of several groups: blacks and African Americans, Latinos, American Indians and Native Alaskans, Asian Americans, and Arab Americans and American Muslims. These chapters lay the foundation for exploring an individual's health beliefs and concerns in the context of his or her sociocultural experiences.

"The text is state-of-the-art in its analysis of health disparities from both domestic and international perspectives. Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the United States is a welcome addition to the field because it widens access to the complex issues underlying the health disparities problem. "-- Preventing Chronic Disease/CDC, October 2005 "This is a very comprehensive, evidence-based book dealing with the health disparities that plague the United States. This is a welcome and valuable addition to the field of health care for minority groups in the United States."-- Doody's Publishers Bulletin, August 2005 "Health isn’t color-blind. Racial minorities disproportionately suffer from some diseases, but experts say race alone doesn’t completely account for the disparities. Newsweek's Jennifer Barrett Ozols spoke with Thomas LaVeist, director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of the upcoming book, "Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the U.S." (Jossey-Bass) about race and medicine. "-- MSNBC/Newsweek interview with author Thomas L. LaVeist, February 2005 "The book is readable and organized to be quickly read with specifics readily retrievable. It is comprehensive and visual."-- Journal of the American Medical Association, September 2005 Minority Populations and Health is a textbook that offers a complete foundation in the core issues and theoretical frameworks for the development of policy and interventions to address race disparities in health-related outcomes. This book covers U.S. health and social policy, the role of race and ethnicity in health research, social factors contributing to mortality, longevity and life expectancy, quantitative and demographic analysis and access, and utilization of health services. Instructors material available at http://www.minorityhealth.com

Edited by Robert M. Huff, Michael V. Kline, and Darleen V. Peterson, the Third Edition of Health Promotion in Multicultural Populations offers both students and practitioners an indispensable resource on assessment and implementation guidelines for promoting health and enhancing behaviors that optimize health in any cultural community. Leading experts explore a wide range of topics, including the context of culture, cross-cultural perceptions of health, conceptual approaches to multicultural health promotion, health disparities, and the contributions of multicultural populations. Using the Cultural Assessment Framework (CAF), this proven handbook includes a focus on six specific populations (Hispanic/Latino, African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian American, Pacific Islanders, and Arab Americans).The text concludes with a set of tips for working cross-culturally and a discussion about where the field is heading with respect to research and practice in the 21st century.

This book discusses the concepts of migration, race, and ethnicity and demonstrates how these can be applied in scientific research, policy making, health service planning, and health promotion. Extensive examples are used to demonstrate the application of the theory.

Cultural Competency/Vulnerable Populations

"This book will examine what is meant by culture, the ways in which culture intersects with health issues, how public health efforts can benefit by understanding and working with cultural processes, and a brief selection of conceptual tools and research methods that are useful in identifying relationships between culture and health. The book will also include practical guidelines for incorporating cultural understanding in public health settings, and examples of programs where that has occurred"--