Celebrating Diversity

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Celebrating Diversity

• M. Burns
• FCS 3756

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Food for thought

• In your opinion, how does ethnicity affect the
  nutritional and educational needs of a community?
  Please provide examples as appropriate.

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A few terms

• Culture
• Enculturation
• Cultural values
• Diversity
• Cross-cultural
• Ethnocentric

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Need for Cultural Competence

• Demographic diversity and projected population
  shifts
• Increased utilization of traditional therapies
• Under-representation of health care providers
• Legislative/regulatory mandates
• Health disparities

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Cultural Competence Continuum

• Cultural destructiveness
• Cultural incapacity
• Cultural blindness
• Cultural pre-competence
• Cultural competence
• Cultural proficiency

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How to be more culturally aware

• Explore the media.
• Arrange cultural encounters.
• Visit community meetings.
• Take language lessons.
• Travel.
• Read.

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Cultural Competence in the Community

• Be aware and sensitive
• Determine degree of acculturation
• Practice culturally correct communication skills
• Nonverbal and verbal

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Sensitivity to the differences

• SES factors
• Environment
• Common health problems
• Health care beliefs
• Religion

• Family structure and social values
• Communication
• Cultural food practices

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Cultural food preferences

• Awareness of food preferences.
• Food selection, preparation, and storage
  practices.
• Nutritional value of traditional foods consumed.
• Food and family traditions.
• Food for medicinal purposes.

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Acculturation

• Degree to which an individual has accepted
  thinking patterns, values, family structures,
  communication styles, etc of the dominant
  culture.
• Impact on food behaviors?

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Impact of acculturation

• Access to traditional foods
• Foods and health
• Food selection and preparation
• Family and food interactions
• New foods

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Effective Communication Skills

• Opening the dialogue
• Ask about food experiences
• Keep open mind
• Tell your own food stories
• What is food used for?
• Favorite foods, meals, etc.

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Effective Communication Skills

• During the session
• Listen and observe
• Know your audience
• Family roles
• Identify the teachable moment
• Comfort of client
• Food social

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Non-verbal communication

• More influential than the verbal
• Must trust interpretations of non verbal
• Differences in non verbal messages among
  different cultures

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Tips to remember

• Respect personal space.
• Dont touch
• Rapport.
• Ask questions.

• Listen to answers.
• Silence is OK.
• Non-verbals
• Responses

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Multilingual Environment

• Establish language to be used.
• Introduce English words.
• Be alert to subtleties
• Use recipes that can be memorized.
• Use pictures.

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Ensuring Cultural Competence

• Valuing diversity
• Cultural self-assessment
• Conscious of cross-cultural interactions
• Having cultural knowledge
• Adapting service to culture