Curriculum Design to Increase Cultural Awareness

Objective: The population of Texas has undergone a significant demographic change. To prepare our students for these changes, The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston received an AMSA grant to develop and integrate a curriculum emphasizing culturally-sensitive oral health care. The first course in the sequence is a first year course entitled “Introduction to the Prevention of Oral Diseases in Individuals and Populations.” The objective of this course is to incorporate and evaluate cultural concepts using a population health focus. Methods: In the fall of 2004, the course was revised to introduce first year dental students to the concepts of culturally-sensitive oral health care. Students received lectures on the Health Belief Model and cultural diversity, and then self-selected into groups, each of which presented a common racial or ethnic stereotype to the class. The entire class then reflected on the stereotype presented. Following this experience, three afternoons during the semester were devoted to community outreach where groups of students presented oral health education programs to population groups representative of the diverse cultural groups in the Houston area. Each group of students reflected on their program with a group presentation to the entire class and a short written paper. Campinha-Bacote's Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competency Among Healthcare Professionals-Revised (IAPCC-R) was administered to the class at the beginning and at the end of the course to measure cultural awareness. Results: Preliminary analysis of the IAPCC-R's indicated that overall cultural awareness of the class increased by 20.34 %. Content analysis of the reflection papers revealed that over 95 % of the students enjoyed their community outreach and were comfortable working with diverse population groups. Conclusion: These results suggest that introducing concepts of culturally- sensitive health care in this course increased students' overall cultural awareness.