Ethnogeriatrics is an evolving specialty in geriatric care focusing on health and aging issues in the context of culture for older adults from diverse ethnic backgrounds. It emphasizes the intersection of knowledge from the fields of aging, health, and ethnicity.
Deeper dive
It is now generally accepted that cultural beliefs and practices influence an individual’s health behaviors, including choices and use of health care services. For many ethnic older persons, the patient-clinician trust relationship is often influenced by cultural norms. Likewise, the clinical interaction is also impacted by the cultural background of health care providers.
Conventional practices classify race based on phenotypic attributes such as facial features and skin color. Ethnicity focuses less on physical attributes and encompasses cultural, behavioral, and environmental factors, which may be a more relevant construct for examining differences in health.
The Office of Minority Health defines culture as the “thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups” . Culture also informs lifestyle and health behaviors and therefore, plays an important role in ethnoracial differences in disease and chronic health conditions. Relatedly, cultural competence refers to the knowledge and interpersonal skills that allow health providers to understand, appreciate, and work with individuals from cultures other than their own.Improving cultural competence among health care providers may be a critical step toward addressing health disparities, according to geriatric experts.