How do leaders influence cultural competence of health professionals: A social network analysis of the COMETH project in Belgium

Dauvrin, Marie;Lorant, Vincent
(2014) 5th EUPHA European Conference on Migrant and Ethnic Minority Health — Location: Andalusian School of Public Health, Granada, Spain (10.April.2014)

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(en) Background: In most European metropolitan areas, health services are required to provide culturally competent health care to migrant patients but, so far, this goal has remained elusive because cultural competence has been mostly considered as an individual competence. Objectives: We tested the hypothesis that health care professionals are more likely to be culturally competent if their leaders are culturally competent themselves. Method: We carried out a social network analysis in 24 health services in Belgium between 2010 and 2012. All health care professionals filled in a questionnaire assessing their level of cultural competence as well as their inter-professional relationships. We identified the most central actors within each health service according to the in-degree centrality. We then performed a regression analysis of the cultural competence of the individuals against the cultural competence of the service leaders. Results: Bivariate regression indicated that the cultural competence of the individuals increased with the cultural competence of the leaders (beta=0.24, p<0.01). After controlling for contextual and individual variables, individual cultural competence increased with the cultural competence of the leaders (beta=0.20, p<0.01). We found that the leadership effect was higher for younger leaders than for older leaders. This leadership effect was also significantly higher when the leaders were trained in cultural competence, when the leaders had a professional experience abroad and when the leaders spoke English than when the leaders did not have such expertise. Discussion: Cultural competence among health professionals is partly acquired through role-modeling. The implementation of culturally competent strategies requires an appraisal of inter-professional relationships and a reliance on leadership role-modeling within health care services.
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Dauvrin, M., & Lorant, V. (2014). How do leaders influence cultural competence of health professionals: A social network analysis of the COMETH project in Belgium. 5th EUPHA European Conference on Migrant and Ethnic Minority Health, Andalusian School of Public Health, Granada, Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/49872