Embracing Cultural Competence to Reduce Disparities and Inequities in the Public Health Care Services of India

Abstract

This study focuses on rigorously documented disparities and inequities in the public health care services of India and offered only speculative explanations from their findings. The researchers also explore the background of cultural competence and culturally competent health care frameworks that can take into existing health care programs to reduce disparities and health outcomes for all populations. This paper reveals that there are racial and ethnic disparities in the minority communities of India in the delivery of public health care services. There is a gap on how to remove theses critical problems and no attention have been paid to techniques for reducing them. Several studies demonstrated that cultural competence resulted in increased satisfaction with care, improved abilities to engage in treatment and recovery, reduced readmission rates and reduced mortality in health care. Previous studies also suggested that culturally competent organizations deliver improved quality health outcomes, increased respect and mutual understanding and fewer care disparities among various cultures. Researchers claim that cultural competence is the key strategy for reducing disparities care and inequalities in healthcare access and it is the effective tool to improve the quality and effectiveness of care for diverse cultures. This paper concludes that there is a need for integrating and developing a culturally competent health care in India to reduce disparities and inequity access to quality care in the public health care delivery system.