Because of the increasing diversity of the U.S. population, health care providers in inpatient, outpatient, and community settings increasingly work with immigrants. As culturally competent practice is seen as an important goal in work with culturally diverse families, the culturagram provides a useful means to help health care clinicians move toward culturally competent practice.

There have been other family assessment tools, such as the ecomap and genogram, used to assess the family. These tools look at the external resources available to the family (ecomap) or internal family relations (genogram), but do not emphasize the important role of culture in understanding the family. The culturagram has been seen as making a contribution to family theory and development. After a brief description of the history of the culturagram, ...