Beyond the list of traits: Addressing and assessing cultural needs of patients in health care settings

Historically, cultural competence included providing a list of traits or characteristics germane to ethnic and racial groups. Although it is important to understand cultural groups broadly rather than merely reducing information to a cultural list, health care professionals need to know how individual patients experience their illness or injury. The purposes of this paper are to provide health care professionals an example of how to elicit cultural information from the patient's perspective using the outline for cultural formulation and cultural formulation interview, to discuss the need to be aware of the social determinants of health in order to help patients or clients beyond cultural needs, and to suggest advocacy through a social-justice lens.