Immigration continues to contribute to an increase in diversity in the U.S. population. Consequently, the enhancement of intercultural health communication skills among clinicians represents an increasingly challenging task. As noted in a manuscript in the October 2023 issue of the journal Patient Education and Counseling, previous research abundantly has indicated that medical consultations between health care providers and migrant and ethnic minority patients tend to lead to worse communication processes and outcomes compared to those between health care providers and patients belonging to the same majority groups. For instance, migrant and ethnic minority patients ask fewer questions, have a reduced understanding of their illness, are less adherent to treatment recommendations, and have higher rates of misdiagnoses compared to ethnic majority patients. Also, health care providers have indicated a need for more training to acquire the cultural skills and knowledge required to enable better care delivery to migrant patients. Factors contributing to the challenges in intercultural communication are individual patient-related, such as specific health and illness beliefs; individual provider-related factors, such as a conscious or unconscious bias toward minority patients; and social and system-related factors, such as a lack of interprofessional dialogue and the financial resources required to call in professional interpreters to mitigate possible language barriers.
The authors elaborate on three main recommendations based on theoretical and empirical knowledge about how to train health care providers adequately in intercultural communication. First, they give an overview of the fundamental skills in which health care providers should receive training, such as self-awareness and adaptability. Second, they briefly discuss how such training should be delivered, and focus on different language support methods, including those that work with different types of interpreters and digital tools. Third, they discuss how within-group differences can be taken into account to prevent stereotyping. To illustrate these recommendations, certain examples of existing good practices and interventions are provided. A conclusion is that there is a need for clearer recommendations for affirmative action, guidelines, policy, and support for the topic of diversity sensitivity in health care, such as evidence-based interventions, than is currently the case.