Culturally Relevant Prevention: The Scientific and Practical Considerations of Community-Based Programs

For over a decade, there have been increasing efforts in counseling psychology and other areas of applied psychology to understand the role of culture in preventive and mental health services for ethnically, economically, and religiously diverse communities. In this Major Contribution, the authors offer examples of three prevention programs in which cultural relevance and competence were central to each program's development, implementation, and evaluation. The interventions each focus on an ethnic minority population, and they are offered in diverse settings. Participants differ in age and contexts in which they receive the intervention (e.g., individual, family, or classroom). Each article highlights similarities and differences likely in any prevention effort with diverse populations. In this introduction, the authors discuss the theoretical and empirical rationale for such interventions, as informed by literature on cultural competence and social justice, and the disproportionate health, educational, and economic disparities that poor and ethnic minority groups experience.