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| The California Endowment's
Health Work Force Initiative |
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The California Endowment's (TCE) Health
Work Force Initiative (HWFI) began funding 26 grants during
a three-year period between December 1999 and February
2001. The Health Workforce Initiative is a grant-making
program designed to contribute to the improvement of health
service delivery for diverse and under-served populations
in California.
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 The Initiative
seeks to accomplish this goal by: (1) improving cultural
competency of health service providers, (2) reducing
linguistic/cultural barriers, and (3) increasing the diversity
of health service providers.
In May 2001, Imoyase Community Support Services (ICSS)
was awarded an evaluation grant to provide a broader perspective
on the collective impact of the funded programs, as well
as an analysis of the potential implications of grantees'
work for future TCE funding considerations. ICSS's evaluation
of the HWFI runs from June 2001 to July 2004.
Grantees reflect a wide
range of organizations and universities, strategies for
improving health service delivery, approaches to cultural
competence, and target communities. Grantees were organized
into four major programmatic categories: (1) cultural
competency training for health care providers, (2) medical
interpretation activities, (3) recruitment of ethnic
minorities, and (4) increased career opportunities. The latter
two categories have been treated as a single area for
evaluation purposes, reflecting their fewer total numbers of
grants.
Each of these approaches contributes to
improved health service delivery through distinctive
activities and goals. Health provider training seeks to
improve cultural competency of providers, although the
specific type and nature of training provided by different
grantees may differ markedly. Medical
translation/interpretation activities target the reduction of
linguistic and cultural barriers, while activities within the
recruitment/career opportunities cluster focus on increasing
diversity of health providers. These activities take place
within a larger service delivery context in which
institutions, organizations, and consumer populations vary by
such important factors as geographical location, socioeconomic
status, race and gender of provider (and patient), and public
policy influences.
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