Cultural Activation of Consumers.

This column discusses "cultural activation," defined as a consumer's recognition of the importance of providing cultural information to providers about cultural affiliations, challenges, views about, and attitudes toward behavioral health and general medical health care, as well as the consumer's confidence in his or her ability to provide this information. An aid to activation, "Cultural Activation Prompts," and a scale that measures a consumer's level of activation, the Cultural Activation Measurement Scale, are described. Suggestions are made about ways to introduce cultural activation as a component of usual care.

Components of cultural competence in three mental health programs.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify components of cultural competence in mental health programs developed for cultural groups by community and mental health professionals from these groups.

Methods: Three programs were studied: a prevention program primarily serving African-American and Afro-Caribbean youth, a Latino adult acute inpatient unit, and a Chinese day treatment program in a community-based agency. Nine study-trained field researchers used a semistructured instrument that captures program genealogy, structure, processes, and cultural infusion.

The Nathan Kline Institute cultural competency assessment scale: psychometrics and implications for disparity reduction.

The NKI Cultural Competency Assessment Scale measures organizational CC in mental health outpatient settings. We describe its development and results of tests of its psychometric properties. When tested in 27 public mental health settings, factor analysis discerned three factors explaining 65% of the variance; each factor related to a stage of implementation of CC.