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Community Voices

Community Voices

Hear the voices and perspectives of nurses, doctors, outreach workers, medical interpreters, and patients: people from a fascinating range of backgrounds, who make up today's healthcare system. This innovative video offers a window into the challenges and rewards of cross-cultural healthcare. Drawing on the insights of community, healthcare, and academic leaders, it helps to integrate cultural awareness and skill building into training programs for all health professionals.

How do diverse languages and communication styles impact health care interactions? How do the meanings attributed to illness in different cultures affect people's experience of illness? What do people do to promote health or treat illness, and why? How do social context and personal history impact health behaviors? How do values regarding authority, gender, physical contact, decision making, and religion affect health? How can people work together to provide high-quality care to diverse individuals and communities?

Community Voices uses cancer as a lens to explore the many ways that differences in culture, race and ethnicity affect health and the delivery of healthcare services. Its six clearly defined sections are intended as triggers for discussion. They explore language, interpretation and communication styles; the meanings of illness; patterns of help seeking; social and historical context; core cultural issues; and building bridges.