Mission and Goals
The mission of the SGEC is to improve the quality of health care and the quality of life of older Americans by educating health care professionals about the health and social service needs of older people, particularly the ethnic minority older adults and their families, with a special emphasis on the cultural context of these needs.
First funded in 1987, the SGEC addresses:
- The needs of local and regional health care training programs to infuse ethnogeriatrics into faculty development and curriculum resources, and the training of local health care providers in ten northern California counties; and
- Local and national needs for a resource center to disseminate professional health care training materials on issues related to ethnicity and aging.
Targeted Disciplines include: gerontology, medicine, nursing, nutrition, occupational therapy, pastoral care, psychology, and social work.
SGEC current goals emphasize:
- Chronic Care: To increase the knowledge and skills of geriatric health providers who provide care for ethnically diverse elders with chronic illness.
- End of Life Care and Spiritual Diversity: To increase the knowledge and skills of palliative care and end of life health care, as well as spiritual healing practices, for practitioners of culturally diverse elders who are near the end of life and their families.
- Cancer Care: To increase knowledge and skills in identifying at risk populations for specific Cancers among diverse elder populations and culturally appropriate models of care for Cancer survivors in ethnic elder populations.
- Emergency Preparedness: To increase the knowledge and skills of interdisciplinary health providers in responding to the needs of diverse elders for preparedness in times of emergency.
- Faculty Development in Health Literacy: To increase the knowledge and skills of geriatric faculty from multiple disciplines in teaching trainees effective assessment and communication skills with older patients from diverse ethnic backgrounds with low literacy.
- Intensive Training in Ethnogeriatrics: To increase the knowledge and skills of faculty and providers from multiple disciplines in providing effective health care for ethnically diverse elders.
The goals of the SGEC include:
- Mental health concerns about dementia, depression, mood disorders, and stress reduction interventions with emphasis on specific ethnic groups;
- Cultural dimensions of family caregiving for African Americans, Filipino Americans, and Latino/Hispanic Americans;
- Ethnic perspectives in urban and rural communities related to end-of-life, spiritual resources for long-term care, women's health, and outreach strategies to ethnic minority elders in rural counties;
- Evolving practice concerns in geriatrics and ethnogeriatrics for primary care providers;
- Site specific, need-based ethnogeriatric and geriatric training;
- Leadership training for professional service providers and seniors;
- Short-term individualized educational experiences.
