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3. Relevance
of Self-Assessment to Public Health Policy
 Public health policy is not limited to the highest federal
levels of governance. Rather, public health policy can include guidelines,
standards,
and policy statements from professional associations, state governments,
and family and advocacy organizations.
In addition, public
health policy can be greatly influenced by such cutting-edge research
as the Institute
of Medicine’s groundbreaking report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care (Smedley et al., 2002).
Although the use
of cultural self-assessment in the development or implementation
of public health policy is not well documented, a literature review
(using a keyword search of Pubmed and other Internet resources) regarding the role of self-assessment
in public health policy yielded the following:
Batalden
and Stoltz (1994) offer a framework for health care leaders
that included self-assessment to assist leaders in fostering
continual improvement within their organizations.
The Institute
of Medicine recommended the use of a self-assessment tool to
develop clinical practice guidelines (Lohr, 1992).
Gomberg and Sinesi (1994) describe the use of self-assessment
to implement a new policy of shared governance for professional
nurses.
The Center for Public Health Practice, University of California at
Berkeley School of Public Health, developed a pre-internship
self-assessment for students (Practice,
2000). It includes questions on cultural competence (under “Leadership
Skills and Abilities”). |
The literature revealed
emerging innovations in merging the concepts of cultural self-assessment,
cultural competence,
and public health policy and practice.
The challenge for future leadership in this area is to develop an evidence
base that will validate cultural self-assessment as an integral component
of policy development and implementation in public health.
A recent study
by Armstrong, Doyle, and Bennett (2003), published in Academic Medicine,
suggests that challenging and highly supportive professional
development programs that emphasize experiential and participatory
activities can “change
behaviors in significant ways, and that these changes endure over time” (abstract).
Cultural self-assessment
is consistent with this model of experiential and participatory methodology
and holds great promise for effecting behavioral
change.
Cultural self-assessment
could be incorporated into ongoing professional development for faculty
and staff at all levels. Additionally, it could
be
a requirement in interdisciplinary health care training programs.
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