About Cultural Navigation
This webpage provides cultural navigation resources to support health equity in newcomer communities for public health disease control and response activities, including public health investigations.
What are cultural navigators?
Cultural navigators are community partners who serve as a trusted and confidential source of information between community members and public health, particularly when conducting public health disease control and response activities. Cultural navigators are deeply rooted in their communities, often community members themselves, and uniquely positioned to bridge cultural and linguistic knowledge gaps for health agencies.
When should you engage a cultural navigator?
Cultural navigator involvement is particularly helpful when designing public health interventions, conducting outreach and education, developing messaging campaigns, delivering services, and conducting public health investigations in communities with varying cultural or linguistic backgrounds. Cultural navigators facilitate effective communication, assist with understanding cultural nuances, and build trust between public health teams and newcomer communities. By collaborating with cultural navigators, public health teams can increase cultural sensitivity, accessibility, and success in addressing the diverse health needs of the populations they serve.
The document below is a helpful tool for determining when to engage cultural navigators.
How can cultural navigators help public health teams?
Integrating navigators and community health workers into healthcare systems, outreach teams, and public health teams can:
Advance health equity
Improve health outcomes
Reduce health care costs, hospitalizations, and burden of illness
Increase inclusion of newcomer communities in public health responses, initiatives, and surveillance
Aid in accurate collection of data for appropriate follow-up services and allocation of resources
Ensure messaging, educational campaigns, programming, and public health responses are culturally responsive and effective
Cultural navigator vs. community health worker (CHW) - What is the difference?
Cultural navigators and community health workers are vital in public health initiatives. However, they may differ in their formal education, employment history, and scope of work.
Cultural Navigators: Cultural navigators help navigate the complexities of cultural differences to enhance the effectiveness of public health outreach, interventions, and services, often without formal public health education or background. They help build trust between public health teams and community members. They are often culturally congruent with the community members they serve. Cultural navigators focus on understanding and addressing cultural beliefs, practices, and preferences to ensure culturally responsive public health initiatives and improved disease control and response outcomes.
Community Health Workers: Community health workers (CHWs) typically provide a wide range of direct health-related services, health education, and outreach, often within specific communities or populations. CHWs usually have formal degrees or certifications in public health, science, health, or medicine. Many states have or are developing certification programs specifically for CHWs. While community health workers incorporate cultural aspects into their work, the primary focus of CHWs is to improve overall health outcomes and access to healthcare services within a community. They may address various health disparities, promote preventive care, advocate for community members, and empower individuals to make healthier lifestyle choices.
In summary, while both community health workers and cultural navigators play crucial roles in improving healthcare access and outcomes for underserved populations, their focus areas, training, and responsibilities may differ based on the specific needs of the communities they serve.
References:
https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/center/community-health-worker-resources.html
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social-service/community-health-workers.html
How does cultural navigation fit into public health?
Cultural navigators play a crucial role in bridging cultural gaps and promoting health equity by providing culturally responsive support and guidance to public health teams and programs.