(a) In this subtitle the following words have the meanings indicated. (b) "Cultural and linguistic competency" means cultural and linguistic abilities that can be incorporated into therapeutic and medical evaluation and treatment, including: (1) Direct communication in the patient's primary language; (2) Understanding and applying the roles that culture, ethnicity, and race play in diagnosis, treatment, and clinical care; and (3) Awareness of how the attitudes, values, and beliefs of health care providers and patients influence and impact professional and patient relations. (c) "Health care professional" includes a physician, nurse, dentist, social worker, psychologist, pharmacist, health educator, or other allied health professional. (d) "Implicit bias" means a bias in judgment that results from subtle cognitive processes, including the following prejudices and stereotypes that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control: (1) Prejudicial negative feelings or beliefs about a group that an individual holds without being aware of the feelings or beliefs; and (2) Unconscious attributions of particular qualities to a member of a specific social group that are influenced by experience and based on learned associations between various qualities and social categories, including race and gender. (e) "Program" means the Cultural and Linguistic Health Care Professional Competency Program. (f) "Structural racism" means the totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination by mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal justice.
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