Beyond Translation: Why Culturally Responsive Diabetes Care Matters
Oct 7, 2026, 09:01 AM
By Diana Mesa, RDN, LDN, CDCES
Early in my career, I believed that speaking Spanish would automatically make me a better diabetes care and education specialist for my Latino patients.
It certainly helped. Being able to explain complex medical concepts in someone’s preferred language builds trust, reduces confusion, and helps people feel more comfortable asking questions.
However, I quickly realized that language is only one piece of culturally responsive care.
Two people may both identify as Latino, yet have completely different food traditions, family dynamics, health beliefs, immigration experiences, financial realities, and relationships with the healthcare system. Assuming they all share the same experiences can be just as limiting as overlooking culture altogether.
Culturally responsive care isn’t about memorizing cultural facts or learning a list of traditional foods. It’s about approaching every patient with curiosity instead of assumptions.
Culture influences far more than what’s on someone’s plate. It shapes how people define health, who makes healthcare decisions within a family, whether they trust medications, how they celebrate milestones, what foods provide comfort, and even how they interpret a diabetes diagnosis. If we overlook those factors, we risk providing recommendations that are technically correct—but practically impossible to follow.
I’ve seen patients told to stop eating the foods that connect them to their families and traditions, rather than learning how those foods can fit into diabetes management. I’ve met people who delayed starting insulin because of cultural beliefs and fears that were never explored during clinic visits.
These experiences reminded me that effective diabetes education isn’t about giving the “right” recommendations. It’s about giving recommendations that people can realistically incorporate into their lives.
The very thing that inspired me to become a CDCES was participating in my dear friend and mentor, Lorena Drago’s Breaking the Cultural Code. She gathered dietitians and diabetes educators with backgrounds from most Latin American countries to create a program for DCESs that provided education on the cultural nuances in diabetes and nutrition across Latin America (often grouped homogenously, when we are vastly different culturally).
This filled a huge gap for so many diabetes educators working with people from Latin American cultures and further inspired me to create my own eBook in both English and Spanish, Better Blood Sugars for Latinos, where I created a diabetes plate using traditional cultural foods from each Latin American country. This resource was created for patients and clinicians alike, and became a very useful resource even in my own clinical practice.
The goal isn’t to become an expert on every culture, because that’s impossible.
The goal is to become an expert at asking better questions instead of assuming.
We can explore how to build on the foods, traditions, and strengths our patients already have instead of trying to replace them with our own. Culturally responsive care challenges us to examine our own biases and assumptions.
Instead of viewing culture as a barrier, we recognize it as a resource that can support long-term behavior change.
When patients feel respected, heard, and understood, they’re more likely to engage in shared decision-making, ask questions, return for follow-up visits, and work collaboratively toward goals that feel meaningful to them.
The good news is that culturally responsive care isn’t a separate clinical skill to master. It’s woven into the conversations we already have every day.
It starts with asking questions like:
- “Tell me about the foods that are important in your family.”
- “What concerns you most about your diabetes?”
- “What does a typical day of eating look like for you?”
- “What feels realistic for you right now?”
Pretty straightforward, right? If you aren’t already, try incorporating some of these curious questions into your conversations with your patients and witness firsthand how transformational cultural responsiveness can be.