Culturally Adapting Evidence-based and Informed Practices to Meet Client Population Needs and Ensure Appropriate Allocation of Scarce Resources: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

Currently, racially and ethnically diverse communities are over represented in behavioral health and child welfare services, and data show that these populations have higher health disparity outcomes, which warrants targeted and tailored programing. This research used a systematic review to answer the research question: What strategies can behavioral health and child welfare leaders use to culturally adapt evidence-based programs (EBPs) and evidence-informed programs (EIPs) to serve racially and ethnically diverse clients to ensure effective allocation of scarce resources? Twelve themes of cultural adaptation strategies were found and evidence suggested that these adaptations resulted in better outcomes than the controls. These findings indicate that leaders that want to appropriately allocate scarce resources should consider cultural adaptations to their EBPs or EIPs to improve outcomes for their racially and ethnically diverse clients. Finally, a cultural adaptation tool is presented that can be applied across systems, ages, and differing races, ethnicities, and cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural adaptation
• behavioral health
• child welfare
• evidence-based programs
• resource allocation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.