A research-based tool for identifying and strengthening culturally competent and evaluation-ready HIV/AIDS prevention programs.

Recent literature on racial disparities in HIV/AIDS and effective HIV/AIDS health service delivery efforts has underscored the importance of cultural sensitivity, relevance and competence in reducing such disparities and providing effective health service delivery. Less work has been done on the role of cultural competence in the delivery of effective HIV/AIDS prevention programs, perhaps because few such prevention programs aimed at minority populations have to date been demonstrated as effective. This article surveys the various ways that the concept of cultural competence has been studied, extends the concept to the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, and presents a simple-to-use instrument that operationalizes the concept for use with HIV/AIDS prevention programs.