Partnering with community agencies to provide nursing students with cultural awareness experiences and refugee health promotion access

Abstract

Refugees' cultural beliefs, communication barriers, and low health literacy may lead to health disparities within the Western health care system. This article describes a teaching-learning strategy emphasizing the community partnership between a baccalaureate school of nursing, an immigrant-refugee program, and a community literacy program in a rural state. Senior community health nursing students partnered with an immigrant-refugee program and a community literacy program to provide health promotion and prevention services to recently immigrated Hmong and Russian refugees. Priority health needs were identified and culturally appropriate health promotion and prevention education modules were designed and implemented by students. Students collaborated with community agencies and businesses to increase access to health resources for these vulnerable populations. Outcomes were the provision of cultural awareness experiences for nursing students and access to health care with increased knowledge of Western health care practices and beliefs for refugees.