![]() ![]() ![]() Betancourt and collaborators define cultural competency in health care as an “understanding the importance of social and cultural influences on patients’ health beliefs and behaviours considering how these factors interact at multiple levels of the health care delivery system… devising interventions that take these issues into account to assure quality health care delivery to diverse populations.” With Australia being one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, it is essential to have culturally competent oral health care professionals in order to address oral health care disparity amongst new immigrant populations as well as supporting interactions with patients from a variety of cultural backgrounds.Ĭultural competence amongst health practitioners has been defined in academic literature, as well as in guidelines, policies and standards compiled by the relevant government, health and education bodies worldwide. Therefore, the acquisition and development of cultural competence should begin during a student dental practitioner’s education. There are also culture influences on expectations, communication and behavior during patient/dental practitioner interactions, which may impact the effectiveness and quality of care. For example, oral hygiene practices (e.g., use of miswak), the habit of chewing betel nut quid, which can damage to the oral mucosa, including the possibility of pre-cancerous or cancerous lesions tooth lacquering, to name a few. Individuals from different cultural groups may have oral habits that seem unusual in Western culture. Underlying cultural beliefs and practices influence the condition of the teeth and mouth, through diet, care-seeking behaviors, or use of home remedies. Each culture has unique beliefs, practices, and expectations of oral health care, rendering cultural competence of great importance to dental practitioners. Therefore, an oral health care professional is highly likely to encounter individuals from a variety of cultural backgrounds on a daily basis during his/her professional life. It is well established that cultural minorities and immigrant populations are disproportionately affected by a wide variety of general health and oral health conditions. ![]() Victoria is the second largest state by population (i.e., 6.3 million), and the fastest growing in the nation, with a 1.9% increase in annual migration from overseas. Australia is a federation with six states. ![]() The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.Īn estimated 28.2% of the current Australian population was born overseas. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. ![]()
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