Some states now require health care providers to develop their cultural competence to allow them to give the best possible care to patients from all backgrounds:

Newsday: States consider educating doctors on culturally specific care

Cornell University Press has published two books that address this issue through the use of ethnography:

Medicalizing Ethnicity: The Construction of Latino Identity in a Psychiatric Setting by Vilma Santiago-Irizarry

and

Ginseng and Aspirin: Health Care Alternatives for Aging Chinese in New York by Zibin Guo