Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Public health professional Nishat Uddin discusses her article “Why culturally compassionate care matters for South Asian communities.” Nishat explains why South Asians, one of the fastest-growing U.S. populations, face disproportionate rates of diabetes, heart disease, and PCOS. She highlights the key cultural and systemic barriers (like dietary disconnects, language barriers, and deep-seated stigma around mental health and infertility) that prevent individuals from seeking or following care. This episode dives into practical, compassionate strategies for clinicians to bridge these gaps, such as adapting dietary advice to include staple foods (like rice and chapati) and understanding collective family decision-making. Learn how small, intentional changes in the health care system can build trust and create genuinely person-centered care for everyone.

Our presenting sponsor is Microsoft Dragon Copilot.

Want to streamline your clinical documentation and take advantage of customizations that put you in control? What about the ability to surface information right at the point of care or automate tasks with just a click? Now, you can.

Microsoft Dragon Copilot, your AI assistant for clinical workflow, is transforming how clinicians work. Offering an extensible AI workspace and a single, integrated platform, Dragon Copilot can help you unlock new levels of efficiency. Plus, it’s backed by a proven track record and decades of clinical expertise, and it’s part of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, built on a foundation of trust.

Ease your administrative burdens and stay focused on what matters most with Dragon Copilot, your AI assistant for clinical workflow.

VISIT SPONSOR → https://aka.ms/kevinmd

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://www.kevinmd.com/recommended

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome Nishat Uddin; she’s a public health professional. Today’s KevinMD article is “Why culturally compassionate care matters for South Asian communities.” Nishat, welcome to the show.

Nishat Uddin: Thank you so much for having me today. I’m looking forward to this discussion.

Kevin Pho: All right, let’s start by briefly sharing your story. Then we’ll jump right into your KevinMD article.

Nishat Uddin: My background is in public health communications and health care strategy. I started my career in health communications and public relations working at some of the world’s largest agencies. During that time, I supported a wide range of clients and worked across multiple therapeutic areas. Those experiences gave me a front-row seat to how messaging, representation, and cultural context shape how people engage with care. It also made me realize how often the South Asian population specifically was missing from those conversations, whether in research, clinical trials, or broader health narratives. That realization inspired me to create South Asian Care, which is a digital health platform and provider directory designed to connect South Asian communities with health care providers who understand their languages, cultures, and unique health needs. Most recently, I’ve been focusing on growing South Asian Care.

Kevin Pho: So let’s talk more about your KevinMD article, “Why culturally compassionate care matters for South Asian communities.” For those who didn’t get a chance to read your article, tell us what it’s about.

Nishat Uddin: The article came from both personal and professional experiences. For years, I worked in spaces where public health and health care storytelling narratives intersected. While the industry has made progress toward diversity and inclusion, South Asian narratives are often overlooked or generalized. That gap has real consequences. When cultural beliefs, stigmas, or family dynamics aren’t quite understood, people tend to disengage from care entirely or delay seeking help until it’s too late.

I wanted to use this article as a space to give language to those experiences to show that when providers understand a patient’s cultural context, it can change everything from diagnosis to treatment adherence. For example, understanding why a patient may prioritize family involvement in decision-making, or why certain topics like mental health or reproductive health carry stigma, can help clinicians approach care more effectively and empathetically.

It was also important for me to shift the conversation away from cultural competence, which can sometimes sound static, as if you can check a box and say you understand a community. I wanted to shift it toward cultural compassion, which is more relational, ongoing, and grounded in empathy. It is not just about connecting people to providers who look like them or speak their language, but to providers who genuinely value the cultural nuances that influence their health behavior and ultimately build trust. In many ways, the article was both a reflection of my own journey and a call to action for the health care community to see cultural understanding as essential, not secondary, to quality care.

Kevin Pho: You note in your article that South Asians sometimes are grouped into broad Asian American categories. What’s the single biggest health need that gets erased when this happens?

Nishat Uddin: When everyone comes together, you tend to overlook what exactly is important to these communities. When we are looking at different regions, of course, there are different types of things that are important. Specifically looking at South Asians, grouping data together is a way to look at what is most relevant. However, if we look too generally, we miss what is actually important and what the data is saying about what is impacting these populations. If we go too general, we miss what is actually important to those subgroups. If we can look more specifically, we are able to give better health care to those groups because we acknowledge what is impacting them and what their health disparities are. By overgeneralizing, we can really miss a lot of those important conversations.

Kevin Pho: Another thing that you mentioned in your article was dietary disconnects around staple foods. Give us an example of that and maybe how a clinician can address that in the exam room.

Nishat Uddin: That is one of the biggest areas. South Asian communities in particular have very specific diets or cultural needs, whether they eat a vegetarian diet or eat very specific foods. It is very important that a clinician can work with them as far as their diet and health needs. You can’t just tell a certain population that they can’t eat their staple foods. That is very hard for someone. It is about understanding that these foods are a part of their culture and daily life. You have to find a way to work with them to adapt what is important to them. Instead of taking things out of their diet, help them and educate them on how they can incorporate other healthy things into their diet and how they can moderate things that may not be as healthy for them. Elimination diets don’t necessarily work for a lot of groups of people, specifically South Asian communities, because food is a big part of the culture. Sometimes it can be the food that can be harmful to the community, so it’s a fine balance of both.

Kevin Pho: I think you mentioned earlier that a lot of physicians only have ten to 15 minutes to spend with a patient, especially in what I do in primary care. Of course, culturally compassionate care isn’t just about memorizing checklists. What are some open-ended questions that I can ask South Asian patients in the exam room?

Nishat Uddin: There are a few ways to go about it, especially if you’re on a short amount of time. Asking open-ended questions can be related to their diet, which is number one. Family is actually a really big part of it too, whether it’s family history, family relationships, or cultural practices. Also, just understanding their baseline education is important. A lot of communities don’t have the understanding of what’s going on with their health or what they’re looking for. Just understand where they are, meet them there, and help them reach where they need to be.

Kevin Pho: One of the other things that you mentioned was collective decision-making and the impact of a patient’s family. Let’s say there was a situation where you get a sense that the family at home might not support the medical suggestion that’s being made. How can a clinician navigate those family dynamics?

Nishat Uddin: A lot of it comes with education. Sometimes the reasons that people don’t support decisions in this collectivist community are related to stigma or a lack of education. Empower the patient to have that education and to have the conversations with the family. As a clinician, you’re not always going to be speaking to the family; it’s more just the patient-provider relationship. Really empower them to have the tools and the language they need to relay that information. Sometimes a patient might go home and say, “This is what the doctor said. I don’t really know, but I’m going to do it.” Families may feel hesitant to support those decisions because they just don’t have the information that they need to support it, which can be understandably fair. Empower patients to have the information they need to relay that to their families. A lot of the reasons that people delay care or don’t support care is a lack of understanding or education around the issue.

Kevin Pho: When it comes to culturally compassionate care, I think that trust obviously is a foundation for that. What are some of the red flags that you see? What is the quickest way that clinicians can lose that trust?

Nishat Uddin: The main thing is just overlooking what patients are there for or what they’re discussing. One thing that I have heard largely from the community is women with PCOS. That is quite prevalent in the South Asian community. I know there’s been a lot of progress in that and a lot of new data, but a lot of South Asian women felt unseen, overlooked, and not given the time for discussion about things that were impacting their bodies. Doctors weren’t considering that it’s more prevalent in certain populations or looking into it further. I think there have been certain areas where patients do feel overlooked, over-generalized, and not given the time. Providers need to focus on thinking, “The South Asian population is more at risk for X, Y, Z. The patient is saying they have these symptoms; we should do some more tests.” Sometimes patients feel overlooked, especially when data is showing that certain things are prevalent in the communities.

Kevin Pho: So let’s zoom out a little bit and talk about public health messaging. You’re obviously an expert on that. Is there a campaign or a story where culturally compassionate public health messaging was done really well? What would that look like?

Nishat Uddin: A big part of public health campaigns is the culturally compassionate care that is lacking. That’s what drove me into creating this. A lot of the work I have done has been very targeted and not broadly inclusive of culturally compassionate care. We’re making great strides, and there has been a significant amount of work done in specific populations. South Asian communities are just not one of them. I personally have not seen one very large campaign yet that has resonated with me, which really drives me to help create that. As someone growing up as South Asian, I have never seen myself in communications when it comes to health care. I really wanted to create the resources for people to find something that they can relate to because that is a very large population that is being left out of this messaging.

Kevin Pho: What would that look like? You said that there hasn’t been a campaign that you’ve seen that has personally resonated with you. Especially in this era where a large part of the public has lost trust in our public health institutions, what would some of that culturally compassionate messaging look like?

Nishat Uddin: It involves things that are prevalent to the South Asian community. We are seeing a lot more related to diabetes and heart disease, which are very large in the community. It also includes things that are stigmatized in the community, like mental health, reproductive health, and sexual health. There are so many topics that are often not spoken about in the community, and that’s where the discussion begins. A lot of these communities are hesitant to even put information out due to the stigma. That’s something I’m really passionate about: breaking down that stigma and putting information out there. Just because it’s a hard topic to talk about doesn’t mean it’s not important. I really do like to hone in on topics that are not often spoken about in South Asian households. It can be as simple as campaigns on those topics. One other thing that’s really important is offering these campaigns in different languages because the South Asian population can speak a number of different languages. Having those resources available is very important for the messaging to land in those communities and to increase education.

Kevin Pho: Let’s talk specifically about mental health. How can we relieve some of the cultural stigma around mental health that is present in some communities?

Nishat Uddin: It begins with discussion and communication. I see a lot of younger generations now are being more open to talk about these things, especially with their parents, grandparents, and older people in the population. I think that is helping a little bit with breaking the stigma. Before, if you were a young person in a South Asian household, you would never tell an elder that you were seeking therapy or help. But now that’s changing a little bit. We’re seeing a shift. People are having more open conversations. Other populations are seeking help for themselves as well.

I do a lot of webinars, just basically “Mental Health 101” for South Asians. It’s just education on what mental health is because a lot of people don’t really understand it. They’re very quick to say, “I don’t need it. I don’t believe in it.” But they don’t really know the benefits. It starts with very simple education showing them what it can do for them. The more people you know, especially in the South Asian community where they are very much into communication and collectivist opinions, the better. If they hear one person is seeking mental health resources or therapy, they’re more inclined to also do so themselves. It’s a chain reaction. Before, we didn’t even have a discussion on the topic. I think that’s the main essential part of starting all of this.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Nishat Uddin; she’s a public health professional. Today’s KevinMD article is “Why culturally compassionate care matters for South Asian communities.” Nishat, let’s end with some take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Nishat Uddin: Representation and cultural understanding can truly save lives. When we acknowledge the diversity of our patients’ lived experiences, we strengthen our health care system as a whole. At the end of the day, culturally compassionate care isn’t just about awareness; it’s about action. Thank you so much for allowing me to share this today.

Kevin Pho: Thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insight. Thanks again for coming on the show.

Nishat Uddin: Thank you so much. Have a great day.