“In-Language” Co-Design Model: Empowering Bilingual Educators as Health Literacy Initiatives Co-Design Facilitators for Multicultural Communities

This project addresses a critical need to improve health literacy among migrant and refugee communities through the avenues of their culture and language in NSW Australia. The project will develop and pilot a model that uses existing bilingual community educators (BCEs) as health literacy co-design facilitators. Five BCEs will be trained in health literacy and co-design principles and through training workshops and practice sessions. We will use the trained BCEs as facilitators in co-design workshops aimed at 1) identifying a health literacy issue within their respective communities; 2) designing a solution and 3) developing a framework that will be adopted by the collaborating local health district to address the identified health literacy issues. This project will lead to important sustainable and scalable outcomes and outputs such as the bilingual co-design model for exploring and improving health literacy and co-created health literacy solutions and frameworks for implementing the solutions.

About the project
Many people from migrant communities in Australia have low health literacy (HL) due to language and cultural issues and the complexity of the health system, resulting in poorer health outcomes, higher healthcare costs, and more hospital visits. Collaborative engagement in research and participatory approaches, such as co-design, led by facilitators from the same cultural and linguistic backgrounds as migrants, can lead to the design of culturally appropriate HL interventions and resources for these communities.

Project goals
This project aims to enhance the health literacy of health services and multicultural communities through the empowerment of bilingual community educators capable of leading the design of health literacy interventions and resources.

Design
This research comprises consultations with stakeholders, co-design training workshops to empower bilingual community educators and interviews to:
• collaboratively identify health literacy issues within multicultural communities
• co-design strategies, solutions and resources to the identified health literacy issues with trained BCEs, consumers and clinicians
• evaluate participants’ experiences in engaging in the training workshops and co-design process to inform future work

Project phase
The project has three phases. Phase 1 explores and discovers contextually relevant and pressing health literacy topics and issues within priority communities and populations within the broader CALD groups that requires attention. Phase 2 involves co-design workshops to define the health literacy issue(s) and develop resources towards addressing the identified health literacy issue(s). Phase 3 involves qualitative semi-structured interviews to understand participants’ experiences of engaging in the co-design process.

Outcome
The outcome of this project is empowered bilingual community educators capable of facilitating co-design workshops aimed at developing health literacy interventions and resources for health services and multicultural communities. Health literacy resources co-developed through this project will help address specific health literacy issues within the multicultural communities.