Public Health
Ethnicity specific health care organizations are a source of untapped potential for addressing quality of care issues for cultural and linguistic minorities, according to a study in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.
The authors offer several recommendations for reducing health care disparities among ethnic groups, including:
- Developing and recruiting a bicultural and bilingual health care work force;
- Organizing health care resources into ethnicity specific organizations;
- Expanding the organizations; and
- Integrating the ethnicity specific infrastructure into the mainstream health care system.
The authors concluded that beyond ethnicity specific health organizations, efforts to make the health care system more culturally responsive would improve quality of care for cultural and linguistic minority groups (Yang/Kagawa-Singer, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, August 2007). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.