Position Paper Makes Recommendations On Developing Health Disparity Curricula; Journal Features Studies On Dental Health And Minorities

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Dentistry
Article Date: 12 Nov 2007 - 9:00 PDT

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"Recommendations for Teaching about Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Health Care," Annals of Internal Medicine: The position paper describes recommendations from the Society of General and Internal Medicine's Health Disparities Task Force on how to develop curricula for health professionals that address racial and ethnic health disparities. According to the task force, curricula should focus on three learning objective areas. The first is examining and understanding attitudes that contribute to racial and ethnic health disparities, such as mistrust, subconscious bias and stereotyping. The second is "gaining knowledge of the existence and magnitude of health disparities, including the multifactorial causes of health disparities and the many solutions required to diminish or eliminate them," and the third is developing the skills necessary to effectively communicate "across cultures, languages and literacy levels, including the use of key tools to improve communication," the paper states. The paper adds that the goal of health disparities curricula "should be for learners to develop a commitment to eliminating inequities in health care quality by understanding and assuming their professional role in addressing this pressing health care crisis" (Smith et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, November 2007).

November 2007 issue, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved: The November issue of the journal includes several studies focusing on dental care among minority populations (JHCPU, November 2007).

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