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According to the Office of Minority Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, culture and language may influence several aspects of the services system and the people who are served. One of these is the belief systems people have about health, healing, and wellness. What tells us we are healing? What is wellness? These are beliefs that may differ with regard to culture. Another aspect is how we perceive illness and disease and their causes. To what extent are causes potentially influenced by medical care? A third way in which culture may influence the system are the attitudes of patients toward health care providers. Are these attitudes positive, leading patients to have hope that health care will make a difference. A fourth influence of culture is on the providers who deliver the service, and their own particular values can compromise access to patients from cultures different from that of the providers (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has offered a set of practice strategies for culturally competent evaluation. These strategies are listed in six categories: (1) engage stakeholders, (2) describe the program, (3) focus on the evaluation design, (4) gather credible evidence, (5) justify conclusions, and (6) ensure use and lessons learned.

A strategy for engaging the stakeholders is to access cultural awareness. This means knowing ourselves and those who are different. Can we, for example, interact genuinely? In this regard, it is important to recognize multiple identities. A given culture does not totally define a given person. What are the different identities that help us understand someone?

Clarifying the nature of the program is a second strategy. In this regard, we need to clarify the stakeholders’ perception of the program. Can we highlight community strengths? Can we use models that resonate with the community?

After completing the program description, the evaluator needs to focus on the evaluation design. This is Step 3. What kind of information do the stakeholders trust? Do they understand the importance of some aspects of the evaluation design that are highly technical? Can these things be explained? Are they important to the stakeholders?

Step 4 is to gather credible information. What counts as credible evidence to the stakeholders? Perhaps the opinions of certain actors are more credible than scientific evidence. In this step, it is important to employ measurement tools that stakeholders understand and consider valid. Are these tools culturally appropriate?

Step 5 is to justify conclusions. This requires the engagement of the stakeholders in the determination of how data will be presented so that it has meaning to them. The technical experts and the stakeholders need to collaborate on this endeavor. This process needs to involve diverse stakeholders in the interpretation of the data.

The final step is to ensure the use of evaluation findings and to share lessons learned. Stakeholders will not use evaluation results that they do not understand or do not find to be useful to what they need to know. In this regard, you need to ensure that recommendations emanate from an inclusive process. You should involve various types of stakeholders in the determination of the recommendations that are warranted from the evaluation results.