ABSTRACT
A key question in the behavioral health disaster response area relates to outcome disparities. How effective are current behavioral health disaster response interventions with individuals when compared across different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups? This question emerges in the context of a substantial and developing technology of disaster behavioral health intervention (Bonanno et al. 2006). There is extensive literature on cultural competence and its application across different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups (Hernandez et al. 2009). A signiœcant amount of research highlights a generally accepted base rate for population resilience (>60 percent) supported in the literature (Watson and Ruzek 2009). Given these bodies of work, it would be reasonable to assume that outcome disparities across racial, ethnic, and cultural differences would be negligible or even eliminated, but this is not the case. This chapter will highlight the outcome literature, the documented disparities, and the developing discipline of “cultural competence,” and suggest ways to move the “technology” of behavioral health disaster response forward with more effective implementation of the cultural competence approach. It is hoped that this model, based on literature and multiple response experiences by the authors, will lead to signiœcant reductions and/or elimination of outcome disparities for racial, ethnic, and cultural minority groups in the aftermath of disaster.
