Conceptual framework for communicating health and illness across cultures

The formal study of intercultural communication is generally associated with the publication of Edward Hall’s “The Silent Language” in 1959, where the author showed how culture is critical to understanding intercultural communication. After millennia of research, intercultural communication challenges today are global and by that it is meant that intercultural communication is present in every segment of life and in every profession. Correspondingly, the significance of health communication is very important because if people are to interculturally interact with other people, it is important to understand how socio-cultural factors shape the well-being of others. Owing to that, effective health care delivery relies on clear and effective communication which is an essential element in every form of medicine and health care between all of the individuals who are involved: patients, physicians, and other health care professionals. If, in any way, communication between health care providers and patients is not clear, the entire medical treatment process can be problematic and clear communication may be hindered when the participants come from diverse cultural backgrounds. Thus, it is exactly the health care provider who is responsible for communicating effectively with people from diverse cultural backgrounds meaning that a fundamental understanding of the relationships among health care providers, culture and communication is a prerequisite for everyone involved in the health care professions. Furthermore, culturally competent communication appropriates sophisticated and contextually suitable communication behaviors designed to foster maximum physician sensitivity to cultural differences in patients and concomitantly serve as bedrock of the physician-communication competence in interacting with patients. Diverse health care belief systems