Structural Competency in Health Care

Abstract

The pandemics of COVID-19, systemic racism, and accelerating climate crises that have unfolded over the last 2 years highlight how social structures bear significant and disparate effects on individual health. The framework of structural competency offers a new way to understand and respond to health inequities in clinical care and health services delivery. Clinicians can work toward achieving structural competency at the individual, interpersonal, clinic, and community levels using the interventions described in the article.

Keywords: Health disparities; Health equity; Social justice; Structural competency; Structural inequity.