Addressing the Health Literacy Needs and Experiences of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations in Australia during COVID-19: A Research Embedded Participatory Approach

ABSTRACT

Communicating health information quickly and effectively with diverse populations has been essential during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, health communication practices are often top down and poorly designed to rapidly meet diverse health literacy, cultural and contextual needs of the population. This paper describes a research and practice partnership focused on health literacy, multicultural health, and community engagement to address COVID-19 in Australia. The partnership became influential in the local and state-based response to the COVID-19 Delta outbreak in Western and South Western Sydney, an area of high cultural and socioeconomic diversity. Our approach, bringing together academic researchers and frontline health staff working with multicultural populations using a model of co-design and community engagement and action via the “4 M model,” has been successful. It supported the Western Sydney community to achieve some of the highest vaccination rates in the world (>90%). There is an ongoing need to engage respectfully and responsively with communities to address specific challenges that they face and tailor communications and supports accordingly for successful pandemic management. Combining co-designed empirical research with community engagement and action ensures needs are robustly identified and can be appropriately addressed to support an effective public health response.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Olivia Mac and Raveena Kapoor for assisting in the preparation of this manuscript and the following staff from Western Sydney Local Health District Monika Latanik, Multicultural Health Services, Sia Anthopolous, Corporate Communications, Elissa Miller, Centre for Population Health, Helen Ryan, Centre for Population Health, Belinda Duckworth, Centre for Population Health, Jesusa Helaratne, NSW Multicultural Health Communication Services, and Dr H Ling LIM, Western Sydney Public Health Unit. We would like to acknowledge the efforts of all community health workers, local health district staff, community champions, and community leaders who supported and contributed to the survey of culturally and linguistically diverse adults in Greater Western Sydney. We would also like to thank all participants for their involvement in the research surveys.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

KM is supported by an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (1121110). DMM is supported by a Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) Westmead Fellowship. DZ and DM are employees of Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD). In kind support for the project was provided by Western Sydney LHD, South Western Sydney LHD and Nepean Blue Mountains LHD.