An evidence-based roadmap towards reducing cancer health disparities through culturally competent cancer care Free

B21

Purpose: Present a sustainable, evidence-based roadmap to cultural competence in cancer care that will serve as an exportable national model.
 Preliminary results: A comprehensive evaluation of the existing science and practice base has identified significant gaps in documenting the role of cultural competence in the fight against health disparities in cancer care. While a plethora of training material is available, no evidence-based roadmap exists to embed cultural competence across the cancer care continuum. One key impediment is the absence of validated performance measures documenting improvement in learners’ cultural competence in cancer care across the workforce pipe line. The research presented is designed to comprehensively characterize and ultimately fill the gaps identified.
 Methodology: this research project employs a population science approach as articulated in the operational framework and associated implementation strategy below:
 Operational Framework: The proposed frameworkadopts a competency-based strategy and defines cultural competence as a system issue through the lens of the three core components that form the foundation of the public health and health care system: workforce (people); organizational capacity (health care delivery institutions); knowledge management (information collection, storage, analysis and access). Each of the three components profoundly influences the ability to provide quality cancer care in general, and especially to those with special needs. The research-driven operational framework builds upon 8 key guiding principles and 8 implementation steps.
 
 Implementation Strategy: Based on the operational framework, the implementation strategy is divided into three concurrent tracks: the development of a research-based national set of cancer care cultural competencies for medical and pharmacy students arrayed by the continuum of cancer care; the development of cultural competence curricula based on the national set of competencies; and the implementation of this curriculum into the pharmacy and medicine programs at Xavier and Tulane Universities.
 Anticipated Outcomes: 1) A validated model of progressive cultural competence to address health disparities along the continuum of cancer care targeting the entire cancer workforce pipeline- from students to practicing cancer health professionals; 2) A national set of competencies in culturally competent cancer care; 3) A blue print for curriculum development in and integration of cultural competence in schools of pharmacy and medicine.
 Conclusions: Critical gaps in science exist that hamper maximizing the contribution of cultural competence to reducing health disparities in cancer. This research provides an opportunity to further characterize the gaps, and describes an evidence-based roadmap that lays the foundation to address those that are hampering pivotal progress towards culturally competent cancer care.