Challenges of Implementing Culture Into Healthcare

Despite the abundant amount of benefits that could be reaped from implementing culture into healthcare, many obstacles stand in the way. The word “culture” can have many different meanings, which can lead to different adaptation implications. Culture regarding religion could relate to grievances against technology or modern devices (“using smartphones to exchange pictures with healthcare providers of the opposite sex”). Cultural implications regarding society could have a different focus of increasing involvement of family members and community leaders. Understanding which concept would be best for an adaption can be difficult and require cultural awareness, money, and time. Adaptions are a challenge by themselves. If an adaption is not conducted properly, then resources become wasted, defeating the purpose of the adaption completely. 

Cross cultural research is one key factor to improve implementations of cultural competence in healthcare. Cross cultural research has taken new approaches due to the global demand and internet use. Online methods of conducting research has become popular, but even though time and money can be saved, the reduction of “personal cues and support” can result in decreased effectiveness or accurateness of collected data. Cross cultural research also requires additional planning prior to gathering data, and this proves to be difficult because political or cultural changes in other countries can be unpredictable. Huge amounts of effort go into preparation, including organizing meeting times, checking locations, and pinpointing the best time for collecting data efficiently. 

Validity is another issue regarding cross-cultural research. When comparing cultures, “Western-type tests were utilized to compare Europeans with non-Europeans.” The developers implemented their own perspective into the tests, which led to the design of “culture-free” tests. However, this does not completely eliminate the issue of validity, as humans are still the one developing the tests and will still naturally implement their culture. Bias serves as a similar issue to validity. “Behavioral law,” or a mode of acting and thinking within a culture group, is formed into the researcher’s mind after conforming with their culture’s social norms. This “behavioral law” is used to judge another person’s behavior. And since that person’s culture will be different from the researcher’s, bias occurs.

References:

Challenges of Cultural Diversity in Healthcare: Protect Your Patients and Yourself [Internet]. Fdaservices.com. 2016. Available from: https://fdaservices.com/blog/123170-challenges-of-cultural-diversity-in-healthcare-protect-your-patients-and-yourself 

Nittas V, Daniore P, Chavez SJ, Wray TB. Challenges in implementing cultural adaptations of digital health interventions. Communications Medicine [Internet]. 2024 Jan 5;4(1):1–5. Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-023-00426-2#:~:text=Culture%20and%20the%20digital%20divide&text=In%20the%20context%20of%20health%2C%20digital%20divides%20are%20driven%20by 

Halder M, Binder J, Stiller J, Gregson M. An Overview of the Challenges faced during Cross-Cultural Research [Internet]. 2007. Available from: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sociology/documents/enquire/volume-8.pdf 

Challenges in Cross-Cultural Research - Zebra Strategies [Internet]. 2022. Available from: https://zebrastrategies.com/challenges-in-cross-cultural-research/