The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care (The National CLAS Standards, 2016) are standards that encourage an organization to improve upon the health care needs due to the increasing diverse population in America (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health [HHS], 2013). African Americans make up 53 percent of the North Carolina prison system with 7 percent of inmates being women ("NC Department of Correction Prison Statistics," 2010). Accordingly, this growing minority of women is childbearing age (Bard, Knight, & Plugge, 2016). This knowledge leads us to the need for prenatal care in correction facilities, which is imperative for positive birth outcomes. Tracey Norris is a Registered Nurse who works for The North Carolina Department of Public Safety, a correction facility that houses both male and female inmates. Part of her patient population includes African American pregnant women, who are an extremely high-risk group of women, with exposure to the often times fatal risk of delivering a premature baby.
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Having access at your fingertips to learn about the different cultures is imperative to provide the care these inmates deserve and need (T. Norris, personal communication, November 11, 2016). Another important aspect of care would be to tailor care to each culture and race that posses more risk factors present during pregnancy, for instance, African American have a higher incidence of premature babies than any other race. Addressing the need for more racial staff members is a process that our facility continues to work