Cross-cultural caring : a handbook for health professionals (2nd ed)

As North America's ethnic populations increase, health care and social service workers are recognizing the need to be more aware of the particular needs of their ethnic patients in order to provide culturally sensitive and effective treatment programs.

This newly revised edition of "Cross-Cultural Caring: A Handbook for Health Professionals" describes Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Chinese, Japanese, Iranian, South Asian, and Central American ethno-cultural groups.

It stresses the need to understand both the cultural beliefs and daily life issues facing immigrants, such as work, income, child-rearing, and aging, all of which impinge on health.

Reflecting the questions health professionals most often ask about immigrant groups, each chapter describes one ethno-cultural group, discussing such issues as childbirth, mental illness, dental care, hospitalization, and death, as well as home country culture, common reasons for emigrating, and challenges in adjusting to a new culture. With its wealth of practical information, this book will be particularly useful to those working directly with immigrants and refugees, such as health care providers and administrators, teachers and school administrators, and social workers, and will also be of interest to medical students, sociologists, and anthropologists.