Cultural Competency and Tuberculosis Control: Country Specific Guides for Health Professionals Working With Foreign-Born Clients

This pamphlet is the introduction to a series of TB-specific cultural competency guides for the birth countries most commonly reported by foreign-born persons being treated for TB in the United States. Each guide is meant to help health care professionals acquire a greater awareness and understanding of the attitudes, beliefs, and practices related to TB and HIV/AIDS within the client’s birth countries, and includes a number of topics including nicknames for TB, the cultural courtesies or etiquette to observe, verbal and non-verbal communication patterns, the languages spoken, and religions practiced in these countries. As a result of this knowledge, the health care worker will be able to use a more culturally relativistic approach to client interviews, TB contact investigations, diagnostic procedures, patient education, and counseling. Guides are available for the following countries: Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Somalia, and Vietnam.