AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange Focuses on Culturally Appropriate Care and Health Education

The latest issue of AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange features three programs that provide successful examples of culturally appropriate care and health education. In one of the featured profiles, the University of California, Irvine, used a bilingual nurse practitioner to deliver a low-cost, community-based, culturally tailored education program to low-income, predominantly elderly Korean immigrants with type 2 diabetes, with the goal of improving their ability to self-manage the disease. The nurse practitioner conducted two educational sessions in Korean to review with patients the basic pathology of diabetes, common complications and medical treatments, and culturally tailored self-management strategies. The sessions were based on content developed by the American Diabetes Association and the National Diabetes Education Program. The program improved self-management behaviors and some of the key biological outcomes of diabetes: better blood glucose control, higher levels of “good” cholesterol, and reductions in waist circumference. Select to access more innovation profiles, tools, and resources related to culturally appropriate health care and resources and information related to cultural and linguistic competence.