Cultural competence in migrant healthcare

Abstract

The 2004 Amsterdam Declaration called for countries across Europe to take adequate measures to ensure that health provision is accessible, appropriate and sufficiently ‘culturally competent’ to meet the needs of migrants from diverse backgrounds, a call more recently reiterated in the WHO High Level Meeting on Refugee and Migrant Health held in Rome in November 2015. Meeting these health needs is vital, particularly given the large-scale migration currently experienced across the region, and the arrival of increasing numbers of families, unaccompanied children, pregnant women and elderly people with specific healthcare requirements. This chapter provides an overview of the broad array of factors facing migrants as they seek to access healthcare within Europe. Placing particular focus on the concept of cultural competency as it relates to interpretation, cultural mediation and healthcare training, the chapter examines what is known about good practice in migrant healthcare.