A social network analysis of the influence of the social proximity on the diffusion of cultural competence among health professionals

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)

Files

No attached file found for this publication.

Details

Authors
Abstract
(en) Background Cultural competence has been widely recommended as a strategy to improve the quality of care for migrants and ethnic minorities. So far, despite promising results, the effects of cultural competence on the health outcomes of the patients are inconsistent, mostly because cultural competence remains considered as an individual behaviour. Literature indicates that cultural competence is rather a collective behaviour, lying on the social relationships. We aimed at exploring the influence of the social proximity on cultural competence of health professionals. Methods We carried out a social network analysis of 24 health services in Belgium. All healthcare professionals were requested to fill in a questionnaire tapping their level of cultural competence and their inter-professionals relationships. We computed indicators of social proximity at service-level and individual-level. We performed a factorial analysis to identify the network dimensions of the social proximity. We regressed the indicators of social proximity of the network on cultural competence of the health professionals. Results Four concepts emerged from the factor analysis: cohesion, popularity, distance and separation. In the bivariate regression model, we did not find any consistent effect across the different variable. We found a slight negative significant effect for the popularity on cultural competence. We found a slight negative significant effect for the distance on cultural competence. No effects were found for the cohesion or the separation between health professionals. When controlled contextual factors in multivariate models, these effects disappeared. Conclusion Cultural competence is not yet a shared behaviour among health professionals. Positive externalities in the organisation, adoption of cultural competence by elite and influent leaders able to valorise such competencies are likely to support the development of cultural competence as norms among health professionals.
Affiliations

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Dauvrin, M., & Lorant, V. (2014). A social network analysis of the influence of the social proximity on the diffusion of cultural competence among health professionals. 5th EUPHA European Conference on Migrant and Ethnic Minority Health, Andalusian School of Public Health, Granada, Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/48355