For Immediate Release
Harvard Study Assesses Medical Students' Cultural Competency
Contact: Kathryn Ryan
914-740-2250
kryan@liebertpub.com
New Rochelle, NY, January 11, 2017—Less than half of fourth-year medical students surveyed at Harvard Medical School felt they had adequate training and skills to care for culturally diverse patient populations, according to a study published in Health Equity, a new peer-reviewed open access journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available open access on the Health Equity website.
Alexander Green, MD, MPH, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA), and coauthors from University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu, HI), University of California-San Francisco, Boston University School of Medicine (MA), and Yale School of Public Health (New Haven, CT) report that fourth-year medical students scored significantly higher overall than first-year students on self-reporting of preparedness and skillfulness in providing cross-cultural care.
The researchers assessed medical students’ perspectives on their own cultural competency across four consecutive years. The authors present the results for eleven preparedness items and ten skillfulness items in the article entitled “Measuring Medical Students’ Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care.”
“From effectively addressing global outbreaks to ensuring optimal health outcomes, future physicians must be well prepared to address diverse populations. Despite efforts on numerous fronts, we clearly need to do more,” says Health Equity Editor-in-Chief Ana E. Núñez, MD, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Medicine, Drexel University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
About the Journal
Health Equity is the new peer-reviewed open access journal that meets the urgent need for authoritative information about health disparities and health equity among vulnerable populations. With coverage ranging from translational research to prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management of disease and illness, the Journal serves as a primary resource for organizations and individuals who serve these populations at the community, state, regional, tribal, and national levels. Health Equity is supported by a generous grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to ensure that it is accessible as widely as possible and to provide a framework for achieving health equity for children, families, and communities by reducing and ultimately eliminating disparities in health and their social, economic, and environmental determinants. Complete information is available on the Health Equity website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Population Health Management, LGBT Health, Transgender Health, and Journal of Women’s Health. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.