3.6 Cultural Safety

It is important to conduct the complete subjective health assessment in a culturally safe manner. Cultural safety refers to the creation of safe spaces for clients to interact with health professionals without judgment, racial reductionism, racialization, or discrimination.

The National Institutes of Health define culture as the following: “a social system of meaning and custom that is developed by a group of people to assure its adaptation and survival. These groups are distinguished by a set of unspoken rules that shape values, beliefs, habits, patterns of thinking, behaviors and styles of communication.”^[1]