Cultural Competency

Advantages
Language, Media, and Graphics
Evaluation
Field Testing
Examples

Cultural competency allows us to interact effectively with people from other cultures in person, in writing, and through the Internet. Becoming culturally competent means learning and understanding the customs, rules, ideas, values, worldviews, religion, symbols, gender roles, history, and language of the target culture. To be culturally competent one must accept and respect any differences from one's own culture.

At Transcend, we use our knowledge of cultural competency to evaluate and improve the ways in which our clients communicate with particular groups.

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Advantages

There are many different cultures in the United States. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, over 47 million people speak a language other than English at home. Over 21 million speak English less than “very well.” In California, there are over 220 distinct languages spoken. And 40% of California households speak a language other than English at home. [1]

That means many businesses, organizations, agencies, and individuals deal with people from other cultures regularly. And they want to know the best ways to make their services and products culturally appropriate for their audience. This is especially true in the areas of healthcare, education, social services, and the legal system.

There are many advantages to being culturally competent. Cultural competency can allow you to:

• Offer better quality services that appeal to many cultural groups
• Address differences in areas like health status between cultural groups and help eliminate those differences
• Meet legal requirements
• Gain a competitive edge within the targeted communities [2]

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Language, Media, and Graphics

Cultural competency means choosing the best way to deliver your message to your target audience. It goes beyond translation to another language and includes all aspects of the communication.

Start with knowing what language is best for your audience. Is it Chinese? If so, which oral language? Are you targeting teens, women, or the population at large? Does your audience use Internet? The more you know about your audience, the more successful your message will be.

• Choose the right language. For example, use a standard Mexican Spanish for California; use Caribbean Spanish for New York.
• Choose the right medium. Some groups have extremely low literacy rates in their home language (Hmong, Cambodian), but may read English quite well.
• Choose images that look like or appeal to your audience. If your documents are for Asian, Russian or Hispanic groups, for example, include photos of people that look like those groups or images they would find appealing.
• Choose colors, fonts and layouts appropriate and appealing to your cultural groups. For example, white text on a red background may suggest death for Chinese readers. This may not be the message you are trying to communicate.
• Use common words and phrases that your audience understands easily. For audio and video, also make sure the voice talent speaks with a typical accent.

Remember: Cultural competency is all about getting your message to your audience.

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Evaluation

Cultural competency requires a commitment to continuous self-evaluation. [3] How can you know if your organization and materials are culturally competent? Ask yourself these questions.

Does your organization:

• Know about your own culture and other cultures?
• Recruit and hire bilingual, culturally diverse staff?
• Hold ongoing training for staff about cultural competency?
• Make and follow policies and procedures that are respectful of all cultures?
• Know the community and you audience serve?

Use Transcend’s Readability and Cultural Competency Checklist to evaluate your documents.

You can also check your cultural competency by outside evaluation. We offer tools to help you evaluate your documents and materials, including community review and field tests.

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Field Testing

The only way to know for sure if your readers will understand and respond to the important messages your documents contain is to field test!

Before going to final print, we can take a mock-up of your document to a group of typical consumers. We ask them about the text, graphics and what they like and dislike. Their answers help identify more effective language and graphics. And we learn what words and concepts are difficult for your audience.

Your field test includes preparing an instrument, recruiting participants, conducting the test and writing a report. We will also make suggestions based on the field test responses and incorporate changes to the documents.

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Examples

Here are some examples of how cultural competency improved the final product for Transcend’s clients:

Poster for Spanish-Speakers

To create a First 5 poster that would work well for Spanish-speakers in California, we did the following:

• Translated the text using standard Mexican Spanish,
• Lowered the reading grade level, without changing meaning,
• Incorporated Mexican colors (red, white and green) in the design,
• Changed ALL CAPS to lower case, and
• Used a highly readable sans serif font.

Click to enlarge

The Spanish-language poster looked different than the English version, but it was more appealing and culturally appropriate for the intended audience. The client’s reaction: “This is absolutely fantastic!”

Website with Health Information for Teens

To create a website with health information for teens, we made modifications that research showed would appeal to this age group. [4] Published research and Transcend field testing demonstrated that teens really like:

• cool graphics,
• interactive features, and
• visual information in vibrant colors and patterns.

They do not like a lot of text, clumsy or slow websites, or small size font. Armed with this information about teen culture, we were able to design a website that appeals to teens, and increases the chance of their getting and sharing the information at the site.

For more information on how teens use the web, click here.

Early Detection Strategies for Asian and Latina Women

When the Department of Health Services wanted to get more Asian and Latina women to go for regular breast and cervical exams, we conducted a community review with professionals who worked with women in the target groups.

For maximum appeal and readability, we incorporated the communities’ suggestions to:

• include more photos of Asian/Latina women,
• respond to issues of modesty,
• strategize how to address the sensitivity of the topic, especially for older women, and
• attract more female staff from these ethnic groups who speak their language.

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For more information about the community reviewer comments, click here.

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References and Notes

[1] National Center for Cultural Competency, Policy Brief 1, 2003
[2] National Center for Cultural Competency, Policy Brief 1, 2003
[3] Cross, T., Bazron, B., Dennis, K., and Isaacs, M., Towards a culturally competent system of care. Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1989.
[4] Norman Nielsen Group, 2005, www.nngroup.com/reports/teens/.

Other Services:

Plain Language
Plain Language Training
Web Accessibility
Translation
Voice Talent