The California Endowment

Culturally Competent Health Systems

Our goal in this area is to advance the knowledge, attitudes, skills and experience of health providers and health systems to effectively serve California’s diverse communities.

Culturally competent health systems are ones that are engaged with and responsive to diverse individuals and communities. Culture is defined broadly and includes race, ethnicity, national origin, primary language, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, spirituality and religion.

A Comprehensive Framework and Preferred Practices for Measuring and Reporting Cultural Competency

The National Quality Forum (NQF), an organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality, has endorsed 45 practices to guide health care systems in providing care that is culturally appropriate and patient centered. This report presents those practices along with a comprehensive framework for measuring and reporting cultural competency.

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Overcoming Language Barriers to Health Care

The publication, Overcoming Language Barriers to Health Care, describes policy efforts at the state and federal levels to overcome language barriers to health care faced by non-English speaking patients. Importantly, this case study demonstrates the critical role that the administrative and regulatory process plays in establishing and implementing public policy.

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Regional Offices of The California Endowment

The California Endowment maintains a regional approach to grant making and has offices throughout the state. With this commitment to a regional presence, The Endowment has program staff actively working in local communities to identify, support and partner with community-based organizations.