Cross Cultural Health Care Program
Recognizing the diversity and the different ways to health, the mission of the Cross Cultural Health Care Program is to serve as a bridge between communities and health care institutions to ensure full access to quality health care that is culturally and linguistically appropriate. Includes books and resources, training programs, interpreter services, translation services and research serves.

Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care
Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care is a national network of individuals and organizations in ethnic communities and health care organized to offer technical assistance and information on linguistic and cultural competence in health care. Particular areas of expertise amongst members, staff, and consultants include medical interpretation program design and training, cross cultural assessment and training, and development of linguistically and culturally competent health care programs, policies, and laws, especially Medicaid managed care policy and Title VI enforcement. Services include program design, policy development and analysis, research, and community advocacy. Through a variety of mechanisms, this non-profit organization provides critical expertise and assistance in the design and delivery of health services for culturally diverse communities.

EthnoMed
EthnoMed, an electronic database that contains medical and cultural information on refugee groups, tries to bridge cultural and language barriers during medical visits. The objective of the project is to make information about culture, language, health, illness and community resources directly accessible to health care providers who are seeing patients from different refugee groups. It is designed to be a clinical tool that can be used by a care provider in the few minutes before seeing a patient in clinic. For instance, before seeing a Cambodian patient with asthma, a provider might use a computer terminal in clinic to access EthnoMed and read about how the concept of asthma is translated and what the common cultural and interpretive issues are that complicate asthma management in the Cambodian community. A practitioner might also download a patient education pamphlet in Cambodian to give to the patient.

EthnoMed is designed to be available in neighborhood or school clinics, hospitals, libraries - wherever the Internet is accessible - so that the file can be consulted immediately before seeing the patient. The ethnic groups included to this date are the Amharic, Cambodian, Eritrean, Hispanic, Oromo, Somali, Tigrean, and Vietnamese. Other ethnic groups will be included as materials are written.

Office of Minority Health
The Office of Minority Health (OMH) was created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1985 as a result of the Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Black and Minority Health. Under the direction of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health, OMH advises the Secretary and the Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS) on public health issues affecting American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, Blacks/African Americans, and Hispanics/Latinos.
The mission of OMH is to improve the health of racial and ethnic populations through the development of effective health policies and programs that help to eliminate disparities in health.

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