Health disparities among minority populations in the United States have been well-documented in studies examining the quality of healthcare among a variety of ethnic groups. Minority populations consistently receive worse health outcomes in a variety of healthcare settings when treated for a variety of illnesses. When a language barrier is also a component, health disparities are often more severe as Limited English Proficient (LEP) minority people are less likely to understand what providers say during the medical encounter, even when bilingual interpreters are present. To alleviate such health disparities, cultural competency has been identified as a major goal for healthcare providers. An important aspect of culturally competency is understanding how cultural groups view healthcare and how they perceive the healthcare options available to them. The goal of this work is to collect and examine narratives among a poor, urban Latino community to gain a better understanding of their experiences with and attitudes toward healthcare. The specific hypothesis behind the proposed research is that community narratives about healthcare will demonstrate that cultural competency must be locally constituted based on the needs, values, and cultural conceptions about healthcare delivery within the particular community that is being served. That hypothesis s based on the following observation as reflected in previous research and in preliminary data analysis. First, culture is a locally constituted, dynamic construct. Second, people's narratives allow an understanding of the shifting ideologies that exist within cultural groups.
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