§ 251. Definitions
As used in this chapter:
(1) “Cultural competency” means a set of integrated attitudes, knowledge, and skills that
enables a health care professional to care effectively for patients from cultures,
groups, and communities other than that of the health care professional. At a minimum,
cultural competency should include the following:
(A) awareness and acknowledgement of the health care professional’s own culture;
(B) utilization of cultural information to establish therapeutic relationships;
(C) eliciting and incorporating pertinent cultural data in diagnosis and treatment;
(D) understanding and applying cultural and ethnic data to the process of clinical care;
and
(E) the ability to recognize the importance of communication, language fluency, and interpretation
in the provision of health care services and assist with access to interpretation
and appropriate communication services.
(2) “Cultural humility” means the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is
other-oriented, or open to the other, in relation to aspects of cultural identity
that are most important to the client or patient.
(3) “Health disparity” means differences that exist among specific population groups in
the United States in attaining individuals’ full health potential that can be measured
by differences in incidence, prevalence, mortality, burden of disease, and other adverse
health conditions.
(4) “Health equity” means all people have a fair and just opportunity to be healthy, especially
those who have experienced socioeconomic disadvantage, historical injustice, and other
avoidable systemic inequalities that are often associated with the social categories
of race, gender, ethnicity, social position, sexual orientation, and disability.
(5) “Health equity data” means demographic data, including race, ethnicity, primary language,
age, gender, socioeconomic position, sexual orientation, disability, homelessness,
or geographic data that can be used to track health equity.
(6) “LGBTQ” means Vermonters who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
or questioning.
(7) “Non-White” means Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color. It is not intended to reflect
self-identity, but rather how people are categorized in the racial system on which
discrimination has been historically based in the United States and how Vermont typically
disaggregates data solely by White and non-White.
(8) “Race and ethnicity” mean the categories for classifying individuals that have been
created by prevailing social perceptions, historical policies, and practices. Race
and ethnicity include how individuals perceive themselves and how individuals are
perceived by others.
(9) “Social determinants of health” are the conditions in the environments where people
are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age, such as poverty, income and wealth
inequality, racism, and sex discrimination, that affect a wide range of health, functioning,
and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. They can be grouped into five domains: economic
stability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhood
and built environment, and social and community context. Social determinants of health
are systematic, interconnected, cumulative, and intergenerational conditions that
are associated with lower capacity to fully participate in society. (Added 2021, No. 33, § 3; amended 2021, No. 105 (Adj. Sess.), § 346, eff. July 1, 2022.)