A snapshot of cultural competency education in US dental schools

During the last decade, cultural competency has received a great deal of attention in health care and the literature of many fields, including education, social services, law, and health care. The dental education literature provides little information regarding status, strategies, or guiding principles of cultural competency education in U.S. dental schools. This study was an attempt to describe the status of cultural competency education in U.S. dental schools. A web-based thirty-question survey regarding cultural competency education coursework, teaching, course materials, and content was sent in 2005 to the assistant/associate deans for academic affairs at fifty-six U.S. dental schools, followed up by subsequent email messages. Thirty-four (61 percent) dental school officials responded to the survey. The majority of respondents (twenty-eight; 82 percent) did not have a specific stand-alone cultural competency course, but indicated it was integrated into the curriculum. Recognition of local and national community diversity needs prompted course creation in most schools. Respondents at almost two-thirds of schools indicated that their impression of students' acceptance was positive. Teachers of cultural competency were primarily white female dentists. Few schools required faculty to have similar cultural competency or diversity training. Thirty-three of the thirty-four U.S. dental schools responding to this survey offer some form of coursework in cultural competency with little standardization and a variety of methods and strategies to teach dental students.