PUBH6242: Cultural Humility with American Indian Populations

The course will present evidence that cultural humility is a lifelong quest toward achieving positive outcomes in work with American Indian Tribes and American Indian communities. It is essential that health care and health service providers learn the respective cultures of the American Indian population they are serving. Equally important is the fact that every federally recognized tribe, of which there are 573, has their own unique traditional customs, history with other tribes, and often subpopulations within the governance of a single tribal government. The realization of understanding how populations have been driven by their respective cultures to their overall health and well-being is necessary to promote achievement of positive outcomes for stakeholders and communities.The course will target methods to help health professionals to ensure that health services take into account individual understanding of the professional’s knowledge and how this knowledge should be respectful of individual cultural preferences.A systematic process will be provided to assist in how to learn community policies, learning processes, and traditions; as well as learning about various structures by which the culture of governments, organizations and individuals develop and support the attitudes, behaviors, practices and systems that are needed for effective cross-cultural interactions between health professionals and community members. Students will learn that ultimately, cultural humility effectiveness is determined by the individual who is receiving the services. The course is grounded in the understanding that cultural humility can effectively be used to strive for continuous improvement, to effectively utilize assets and address the health needs of individual American Indian communities.

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