Abstract
Racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities are more likely to report challenges with oncology provider communication and quality of care. The Together-Equitable-Accessible-Meaningful (TEAM) training was developed to improve health equity across cancer care organizations by guiding teams of interprofessional learners through planning and implementation of quality improvements to advance equitable, accessible, and patient-centered cancer care. This study compared changes to self-reported cultural competence as measured by the Cultural Competency Assessment (CCA); Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Development of Clinical Skills Scale (LGBT-DOCSS); and Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale (ISVS). The primary aim of the study was to assess changes to self-reported cultural competence; the secondary aim was to examine changes to interprofessional valuation from baseline to post-intervention. Results indicated statistically significant improvements in self-reported Cultural Competency Behaviors (p = .055), a subscale of the CCA, and Attitudinal Awareness toward sexual and gender minorities (p = .046), a subscale of the LGBT-DOCSS, using p < .10 as statistically significant. These subscale results drove statistically significant improvements for their respective composite scales. No other statistically significant results were found. This study suggests that cultural competency training among interprofessional oncology health care professionals can be effective. Given the growing diversity within the USA, additional opportunities for cultural competency training are needed.
Highlights
Racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities in the USA are likely to encounter few oncology health care professionals who share their lived experiences: while Black and LatinoAmericans comprise 13% and 18% of the US population, respectively [1], the oncology workforce is disproportionatelyWhite (52%) with few Black (3%) or Hispanic (5%) physicians [1, 2]
This study suggests that cultural competency training among interprofessional oncology health care professionals can be effective
The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a novel, hybrid online and in-person cultural sensitivity training called Together-Equitable-Accessible-Meaningful (TEAM) on a diverse group of oncology professionals
Summary
Ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities in the USA are likely to encounter few oncology health care professionals who share their lived experiences: while Black and LatinoAmericans comprise 13% and 18% of the US population, respectively [1], the oncology workforce is disproportionatelyWhite (52%) with few Black (3%) or Hispanic (5%) physicians [1, 2]. Ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities in the USA are likely to encounter few oncology health care professionals who share their lived experiences: while Black and Latino. While there have been many calls to action for cultural competency training [10], there have been few evaluations of the effectiveness of training among health care professionals at large [11] or among cancer care professionals [12]. Until recently, the only published intervention evaluating effectiveness of cultural competency training among cancer care professionals was focused on clinical trial recruitment of racial and ethnic minorities [12]. There is emerging literature on training oncology providers to improve the care of sexual and gender minorities [13], but there are no known studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of cultural competency training using an intersectional approach among oncology professionals. The learning intervention for this study was novel by training multidisciplinary teams of cancer healthcare professionals using an
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