Study: Who really benefits from cultural competency training?

It’s been called cultural competency. More recently the phrase “cultural humility” has gained favor. The basic goal is the same — that people in organizations serving the public be able to transcend their own cultural assumptions to establish good relationships with all kinds of customers/clients/patients.

Lots of companies and nonprofits have considered or carried out cultural competency training for their employees. But as with other kinds of training, there’s a question: Does it work?

One wide-ranging research study, out of Johns Hopkins University, suggests that it does.

A question of improvement

The researchers, a group of medical doctors and public health experts, selected 34 previously published, scholarly articles about the effects of cultural competency training and analyzed the data they presented.

Although these articles specifically covered cultural competency training for medical providers, the conclusions drawn by the Johns Hopkins researchers have relevance for purveyors of other goods and services as well.

The researchers looked at two categories of training results: Provider improvement and client satisfaction improvement.

Strong effects noted

Nineteen of the studies reviewed had to do with cultural competency training’s impact on provider knowledge. Fully 17 of these demonstrated a beneficial effect. Twenty-five of the studies looked at provider attitudes, and 21 of them found a beneficial effect in this area. Finally, 14 of the studies considered training effects on provider skills, and all of these found beneficial effects.

As for client satisfaction, three of the studies concerned themselves with this aspect of cultural competency training. All three found beneficial effects of training on client satisfaction.

Elements of training

Of course, the specific components of a cultural competency training program will vary according to the industry or field the organization works in.

In the medical field discussed in this particular study, training included instruction in the languages spoken by clients — notably Spanish — and home visits to observe how clients interacted with others of the same culture.

In any particular industry, such training might look quite different. Implicit biases, inclusion strategies and different facets of employee and customer diversity are among the topics that might be covered. But the research shows that some form of cultural competency would be a worthy addition to your organization’s training menu.

This blog post is based on the following research study: Beach, M.K., et al. (2005) Cultural Competency: A Systematic Review of Healthcare Provider Educational Interventions. Med Care, 43(4), 356-373.