How Cultural Competency Impacts Social Determinants of Health in Pharmacy

Jacinda C. Abdul-Mutakabbir aka “JAM”, PharmD, MPH, AAHIVP, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Loma Linda University School of Pharmacy, spoke with Pharmacy Times about her session at McKesson ideaShare 2022 titled "Cultural Competence in Pharmacy Practice".

JAM: All right, so cultural competency independently affects, you know, social determinants of health. So, access to health care, it affects education that individuals are able to receive. So when there are inequities in that, then people are less apt to have access to health care. But if we are culturally competent, then we know the impacts of social determinants of health can have and how racism and transphobia homophobia can contribute to, to the social determinants of health. And we know that if we increase our cultural competence, then we can fight those different isms and those different phobias. So, to where when we think about social determinants of health, we don't longer have to say SDOH inequities, we can say, well, these are social determinants of health. However, we've worked really hard to narrow the gaps because we have built our agricultural competencies and we've been able to combat the racism, the transphobia and homophobia that may contribute to us not being culturally competent or having an equitable health care system.