Course Discription

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- Elective courses
Cultural Competence in Global Health: Perspectives and Practices
0 credit
Type of courses
Elective courses
Instructor
Po-Han Lee
Course Outline
The course will use indigenous health as an example to illustrate the importance of cultural competence on global health issues. Cultural competence is a critical element of cultural safety. In addition to cultural competence, cultural safety also includes the concept of cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity. Cultural safety has been adopted to define new approaches to healthcare and community healing by the healthcare providers who are working in indigenous community. The definition of cultural safety includes a strategic and intensely practical plan to change the way healthcare is delivered to indigenous peoples. In particular, the concept is used to express an approach to healthcare that recognizes the contemporary conditions of indigenous peoples which result from their post-contact history. A specific attention is given to how colonialism affects indigenous health and well-beings. Basing upon the concept of cultural safety, this course will explore several indigenous health issues, including indigenous health inequality, indigenous cultural safety, indigenous health in the context of culture, social determinants of indigenous health, indigenous ethnomedicine, indigenous mental health, indigenous ecohealth, indigenous health promotion, and indigenous long-term care. In addition to lectures, several field trips will be arranged to visit government institutions, indigenous hospital, and indigenous communities for enhancing students’ understandings to the relationship between cultural safety and indigenous health from the perspective of global health.

Course Objectives:

Objectives of this course are to help students: (1) promote the practice of considering perspectives of other professionals and persons from other cultures or contexts; (2) employ self-reflection to evaluate beliefs, values, feelings, and implicit assumptions that are used in identifying and solving a problem; (3) understand population health in the context of multiculturalism, impacts of health inequality to different social groups; (4) develop better cultural awareness and sensitivity on global health interventions. 

 

Course Requirements:

The course will be divided into lectures and field experiential learning in the indigenous tribes and health promotion centers. Except for two preparation lectures at NTU, all the course activities will happen in Hualien (Nov 11-15). Attendance to all sessions is a requirement. Students should read and review the reading material before and after the lecture. The slides of each lecture will be available on CEIBA for students to download.