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Equity, inclusion and cultural humility: contemporizing the neonatal intensive care unit family-centered care model

Journal of Perinatology (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Existing NICU family centered care models lack the key elements of equity, inclusion and cultural humility. These models were conceived to support families during the stressful life event of an infant’s NICU admission. Their development, however, occurred prior to recognition of the medical field’s systematic shortcomings in providing equitable care and their impact on outcome disparities for marginalized communities; thus, they do not include cultural or equitable healthcare considerations. Given the significant neonatal care inequities for marginalized groups, incorporating the experience of these patients in a targeted manner into family centered care frameworks is of critical importance to ensure culturally humble and thus more just and equitable treatment. Here, we review past approaches to NICU family centered care and propose a novel, updated framework which integrates culturally humble care into the NICU family centered care framework.

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Fig. 1: Framework for equitable compassionate family-centered care in the NICU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neonatology, Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Providence, RI, USA

    Beatrice E. Lechner & Katheleen Hawes

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Beatrice E. Lechner & Katheleen Hawes

  3. Division of Neonatology and Bioethics Center, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO, USA

    Stephanie K. Kukora

  4. Department of Pediatrics and Department of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, Kansas City, MO, USA

    Stephanie K. Kukora

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BEL, SKK and KH contributed to the conception of the work, BEL drafted the manuscript, SKK and KH made intellectual contributions to the revisions, BEL, SKK and KH approved the final manuscript and agree to be accountable for the work.

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Correspondence to Beatrice E. Lechner.

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Lechner, B.E., Kukora, S.K. & Hawes, K. Equity, inclusion and cultural humility: contemporizing the neonatal intensive care unit family-centered care model. J Perinatol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-024-01949-9

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