Focus Topics

topic 4 | Activity 1: Cultural diversity and cultural safety

Cultural diversity in Australia

Australia has always been a multicultural continent. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Nations peoples of Australia, and have lived on this land for over 60,000 years. They are the oldest continuous cultures on Earth. There were many different language groups and cultural ways before the arrival of Europeans. Significant diversity of cultures, social structures and ways of life exist among First Nations peoples.[1]

Australian society today has one of the most culturally-diverse populations in the world, as these key statistics illustrate:[1-4]

  • 29.3% of people were born overseas (first generation) and 22.2% had one or both parents born overseas (second generation)
  • The most common countries of birth of people born overseas living within Australia include England, India, China, New Zealand and Philippines
  • 22.8% of people speak a language other than English at home
  • The top five languages spoken are: English, Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese and Cantonese.
  • There has been significant growth of communities from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iraq and the Philippines, from the 2016 to 2021 census.
  • Of Australians who are aged 65 years or over, 37% were born overseas, with many representative of the post-war migration of the 1950-1960s. The number of older Australians who were born in China and India is also increasing.

 

Cultural safety and its application to palliative care 

It is important to acknowledge cultural and linguistic diversity and to provide care and support according to people’s preferences. Your personal attitudes and beliefs can distort how you perceive people from different cultures and diverse groups. Cultural safety provides an important framework for palliative care. It involves health professionals examining their own beliefs, behaviours and practices, as well as issues such as institutional racism, to ensure that their services are perceived as safe by the person receiving care.[5]

Cultural safety is a framework developed by Māori nurse, Irihapeti Ramsden in the late 1980s. It extends beyond cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity and aims to ensure that the care provided meets the person’s cultural needs and promotes feelings of being safe.[6] Cultural safety provides the framework in which to deliver culturally-responsive care.[7]

Additional learning on cultural safety and culturally-responsive care is provided in PCC4U Focus Topic 2: Prerequisite Knowledge

  1. Reflect on your own culture. What are your beliefs? How do you respond when your beliefs are not consistent with others?
  2. In your own words, describe the differences and similarities between cultural safety and cultural-responsiveness.
  1. Malaspinas, A., M. Westaway, and C. Muller, A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia. Nature, 2016. 538: p. 207-214.
  2. ABS (2022) People and Communities: Snapshot of Australia 2021
  3. ABS (2022) Census of Population and Housing, 2021
  4. AIHW (2023), Culturally and linguistically diverse older people
  5. Huntir, A. 2018. Cultural safety crucial in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander healthcare.
  6. Bozorgzad, P., et al. 2016. Cultural Safety: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis. Holist Nurs Pract. 30(1): p. 33-8.
  7. Indigenous Allied Health Australia. 2019. Cultural Responsiveness in Action: an IAHA Framework