Page 165 - Cultural Competence in Health Education

Developing Culturally Appropriate Needs Assessments and Planning 143

■ Although health education professionals currently tend to define the success of

their programs in terms of standard benchmarks (such as knowledge gained or
skills developed), culturally appropriate needs assessment, program planning,
implementation, and evaluation require a focus on the needs of the target popula-
tion and the ability and creativity to work with this population to address its mem-
bers ’ needs.

■ In addition to identifying the characteristics and the health beliefs and practices of
the target population, a needs assessment should help health educators to recog-
nize priority needs, promising interventions, and also gaps left by existing pro-
grams. Taking time to accomplish these tasks at the onset of any program will
ensure successful completion of the health education and promotion activities tar-
geting diverse audiences.

CASE STUDIES

Case One
In 2004, the U.S. government announced the arrival of thousands of refugees from
Thailand, who were going to be settled primarily in several counties of the Central
Valley of California. The local health departments were assigned the task of develop-
ing programs to help these families relocate and to access the main health services
they needed. Each county decided to put together its own special task force, and each
task force started its work by conducting a needs assessment. Using what you have
learned in this chapter, answer the following questions.
1. What are the main characteristics that each task force needs to learn about in

order to serve the new refugees?
2. What are the most appropriate methods of conducting the needs assessments, given
what is already known about the likely characteristics of the target population?
3. Which planning model is most appropriate to use?

Case Two

The Santa Barbara Health Department identified an outbreak of active tuberculosis
among a group of Mixtec men in California. Most of the infected persons rejected the
treatment. One of them was incarcerated to ensure he would comply with it. Fearing
that this same situation might be repeated in other parts of the state, the California TB
Control Branch decided to develop a program to target Mixtec migrants and to provide
them with health education on tuberculosis. Using what you learned in this chapter,
answer the following questions.

1. What information does the TB Control Branch need to collect from the target
population?
2. What are the most appropriate methods of collecting this information?

7/1/08 2:54:53 PM
c07.indd 143 7/1/08 2:54:53 PM
c07.indd 143