Abstract
This chapter aims to identify many of the salient discourses at play in reference to understanding the implications of cultural factors in behavioral health assessment. The evaluation of cultural factors in this area reveals complex and evolving considerations that deliberate on the ways in which culture influences the process of behavioral health assessments. To unpack the multifaceted issues and factors associated with this discourse, we first define behavioral health as it relates to understandings within cultural groupings. To add further depth to our discussion, we highlight several examples based on ethnicity, gender identity, and disability, and the implications of intersectionality. We, then, focus on the aspect of cultural bias that can occur while conducting behavioral health assessments and aim to disentangle how the web of cultural bias influences the assessment process. This is a crucial concern that needs to be carefully monitored as clinicians infer judgements of mental health regarding patients’ behavioral health. Finally, we consider methods that can potentially tackle cultural bias when conducting behavioral health assessments.
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Henning, M.A., Ng, L., Sundram, F., Huang, PH., Özcan, J., Lyndon, M. (2023). Cultural Factors in Behavioral Health Assessment. In: Krägeloh, C.U., Alyami, M., Medvedev, O.N. (eds) International Handbook of Behavioral Health Assessment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89738-3_4-1
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