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In collaboration with CAaSSA (Community Access and Services SA) and supported by the Adelaide PHN, Asthma Australia developed and delivered asthma culturally sensitive asthma basics and health literacy to two Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) community groups.
The project used co-design principles to achieve outcomes of 100% attendance and empowerment expressed by participants engaging in self-management of their asthma. This led to real improvements such as an elderly Vietnamese woman who’d had asthma all her life seeing a respiratory and lung specialist for the first time, and an Arabic speaking father recognising his son was suffering an asthma episode, after learning the signs to look out for, resulting in him immediately taking his son to the GP.
Working as equal partners with Bicultural Workers, the Asthma Educator redesigned visual aids and inserted more props into the workshops. A Cultural Communication Specialist guided discussions and development to create content which was more meaningful and accessible to the CALD participants. This included translated information, tools and brochures, plus training for the Bicultural Workers in the content to be delivered in order for to be able to convey the correct meaning and context.
CALD Community members have much lower health outcomes which research has shown is directly attributed to social determinants including health care professionals being unaware of their own cultural biases. A forum to address this by sharing learnings from the feedback and evaluations was held for Health Care Professionals. We found making your workplace welcoming to CALD Community members and providing access to Interpreter Services are two fundamental steps towards addressing this gap.
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