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Debating Identity: Urban Indians In The Healthcare System, Erin J. Klahn

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In recent years, the public health sector has recommended that healthcare practitioners become culturally competent in order to reduce health disparities in minority groups. It was reported later in the Surgeon General's Report (1999) on mental health, that culture shapes the healthcare experience for minority groups and in turn may influence the treatment course. Cultural competence models have been proposed in conjunction with the development of ethnic-specific mental health clinics, where practitioners and patients are ethnically similar, and programs are designed with the groups’ unique cultural needs in mind. This poses a particularly unique dilemma for urban Indians as their …