Offering culturally competent care for the people of color, pa

  Offering culturally competent care for the people of color, particularly African Americans, has been a critical area of investigation even as health care personnel continue with the efforts to identify and understand the factors behind the current disparities of care affecting the community. Therefore, the ability to offer culturally competent care by the health care personnel to the community will facilitate addressing of barriers, including lack of trust and cultural stereotypes by the medical community towards the community (Stansbury et al., 2018). Generally, several strategies can be adopted to achieve culturally competent care for African Americans. 
    Being culturally sensitive and understanding to African American patients is one of the strategies of promoting culturally competent care for the population. According to studies, African Americans have more chances of refusing or avoiding invasive procedures as a result of religious and cultural beliefs (Clark et al., 2018). Understanding and being sensitive to these beliefs is essential in facilitating positive and culturally competent experiences hence improving their engagement in healthcare. Some of the beliefs that could be taken into considerations in the effort to improve culturally competent care for African Americans include lack of trustworthiness between the healthcare providers and the healthcare system, concerns about surgical procedures and their role in spreading cancer, fear of addiction from using opioids in pain management and belief in seeking treatment from spiritual healers and prayers instead of medical treatment (Clark et al., 2018). With these kinds of beliefs, it important to understand to ensure they receive the best quality care that is free from disparities associated with being African Americans. 
     Encouraging African Americans to engage in clinical trials is also another strategy to promote culturally competent care. Statically, African American participation in clinical research has been very low, and this has limited the opportunity to not only offer safe and effective care to the population but also identify culturally competent care. By actively engaging in clinical research, this will present an opportunity for communication, knowledge, and awareness on various health aspects that may reduce the negative behaviors that hinder the provision of culturally competent care (Kelley et al., 2019). Such initiatives will also engage American Americans in their care, thus enabling them to address stereotypes, myths, anxiety, and other concerns that may prevent them from receiving culturally competent care. 
     Offering cultural competency training for the healthcare professional is also another strategy for encouraging culturally competent care for African Americans. This can be achieved through educational interventions that aim to improve the knowledge that is specific to African Americans as well as general interventions. Interventions that are specific to African Americans would aim at teaching healthcare various on how to deal with beliefs, values, and attitudes about the population that result in stereotypes and exaggerations of the diversity associated with the group (Kennedy et al., 2018). On the other hand, the general interventions aim at teaching cultural competence through awareness, empathy, cultural skills, and techniques as well as cognitive measures that would increase cultural sensitivity hence addressing biases and stereotypes. 
     In conclusion, achieving culturally competent care for African Americans has been a vital goal in the healthcare system. This aims at reducing health disparities through improving cultural sensitivity and providing unbiased care. Further, culturally competent care also implies respecting the diversity of the population and cultural aspects related to health and health care.
References 
Clark, J. L., Phoenix, S., Bilbrey, A. C., McManis, T., Escal, K. A., Arulanantham, R., Sisay, T., & Ghatak, R. (2018). Cultural competency in dementia care: An African American case study. Clinical Gerontologist, 41(3), 255–260.
Kelley, F. R., Haas, G. L., Felber, E., Travis, M. J., & Davis, E. M. (2019). Religious community partnerships: A novel approach to teaching psychiatry residents about religious and cultural factors in the mental health care of African-Americans. Academic Psychiatry, 43(3), 300–305.REPLY 2
 
African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the black racial groups of Africa. Many African Americans experience healthcare disparities that result in limited access to healthcare, the underutilization of healthcare services, quality of care received and having inadequate health insurance coverage (Mcr assignment will be graded according to the grading rubric. ..