Cultural competence programs in health care start from the premise that everyone in the society has a culture and is part of several subcultures, including those related to gender, age, income level, region, sexual orientation, religion etc. They should stress the need to understand not just cultural diversity of clients but also to understand the relationship between culture (shared practices of a group, community… through which meaning is made) and health, and most importantly they aim not only to raise cultural awareness by gaining knowledge about cultural difference but also cultural sensitivity through experiences that challenge ones respective cultural identities and their influence on understanding and acceptance of others. This paper identifies the need for cultural competence in relation to youth health promotion and serving young people from various cultural backgrounds in Croatia based on the outcomes of the research on risk and protective factors of the adolescent psychosocial development that revealed significant intercultural and intracultural differences and the analysis of interviews with youth service providers.

Etnologija i antropologija