Indigenous Cultural Safety Training for Applied Health, Social Work, and Education Professionals: A PRISMA Scoping Review

Tammy L MacLean; Jinfan Rose Qiang; Lynn Henderson; Andrea Bowra; Lisa Howard; Victoria Pringle; Tenzin Butsang; Emma Rice; Erica Di Ruggiero; Angela Mashford-Pringle

doi:10.3390/ijerph20065217

Indigenous Cultural Safety Training for Applied Health, Social Work, and Education Professionals: A PRISMA Scoping Review

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Mar 22;20(6):5217. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20065217.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada.
² Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada.
³ Department of Clinical Studies, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada.
⁴ Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada.
⁵ Centre for Global Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada.

Abstract

Anti-Indigenous racism is a widespread social problem in health and education systems in English-speaking colonized countries. Cultural safety training (CST) is often promoted as a key strategy to address this problem, yet little evidence exists on how CST is operationalized and evaluated in health and education systems. This scoping review sought to broadly synthesize the academic literature on how CST programs are developed, implemented, and evaluated in the applied health, social work and education fields in Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, ERIC, and ASSIA were searched for articles published between 1996 and 2020. The Joanna Briggs Institute's three-step search strategy and PRISMA extension for scoping reviews were adopted, with 134 articles included. CST programs have grown significantly in the health, social work, and education fields in the last three decades, and they vary significantly in their objectives, modalities, timelines, and how they are evaluated. The involvement of Indigenous peoples in CST programs is common, but their roles are rarely specified. Indigenous groups must be intentionally and meaningfully engaged throughout the entire duration of research and practice. Cultural safety and various related concepts should be careful considered and applied for the relevant context.

Keywords: Aboriginal health; Indigenous health; allied health; anti-racism; cultural competence; cultural safety; health education; medicine; meta-synthesis; nursing.

Publication types

Systematic Review
Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Canada
Clinical Competence*
Education, Professional*
Educational Status
Humans
Social Work
United States

Grants and funding

No formal research funding was received to undertake this scoping review. The lead author received a one-year salaried Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Dean’s Office, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and a two-year salaried Canadian Institutes of Health Research Health System Impact Postdoctoral Fellowship, which enabled this research under the leadership of Angela Mashford-Pringle.