Cultural competence teaching in public health: a rapid review to support implementation

Efforts to strengthen the public health workforce increasingly emphasize cultural competence as essential for addressing health disparities. While widely recognized, approaches to teaching this competency in public health remain fragmented. With the shift towards competency-based education that is aligned with workforce needs, clarity on how to integrate cultural competence teaching is needed.

To understand what factors support and inhibit cultural competence teaching within the public health education sector.

A rapid review was conducted using the Cochrane Rapid Review Methods Guidance and the databases Medline (Pubmed), Embase (Ovid), and Ebsco host. Blinded screening of title and abstract was performed, with additional citation searches. Relevant data was collected, and qualitative findings were synthesised using thematic analysis. Critical appraisal was performed on all included articles. The review was registered to PROSPERO 2025 CRD420251016703.

17 articles were included. Analysis identified 6 major themes and 27 subthemes. 3 themes focus on the context in which cultural competence is taught: leveraging connections to communities, overall institutional readiness of public health schools, and having the aim to develop culturally competent graduates. The remaining 3 themes focused on content: providing an overview of various teaching practices, educational content, and developing an environment for continuous cultural learning. One cross-cutting code that emerged, referred to the need for standardization across public health and other health and allied health programmes.

This review provides decision-makers in public health schools with insights to advance cultural competence teaching. Closer collaboration with stakeholders and public health professionals is encouraged.