Health Nexus presented the first in a series of Health Promotion Conversations between researchers and practitioners on March 30 2009 on the above topic.

The presentation sought to help answer the following questions.

• Are you a health promoter/ service provider working with immigrant communities?
• Are you a manager planning programs for immigrant user groups?
• Wondering how to increase user uptake of your services?
• Wondering where and how to connect with potential users?
• Wondering what makes them tick?

Nadia Caidi’s fascinating presentation engaged the audience in examining the questions above, and challenged them to think about them in a different way. It shed light on the social contexts surrounding the information practices of newcomers and other members of ethno-cultural communities. Nadia shared insights and experiences about the types of information needed by immigrants to deal with situations encountered in their everyday lives, including their choice of information sources, and successful (or not) outcomes.

View complete video of the presentation:
48 minutes, 24 seconds

Summary of Session - March 30, 2009

This Health Nexus workshop was attended by a participants representing a number of health sector service providers, including:

• public health
• community health centres
• mental health
• women
• education
• research
• hospice
• public libraries

A full published paper on the topic by Nadia Caidi is being published in April 2009.

A post-presentation discussion among participants confirmed and mirrored Nadia's findings and illuminate the difficulty many service providers are having providing information to and serving newcomer audiences. A sample of comments discussed, included:

• it can sometimes be difficult for newcomers to see that a service provider is a useful and trusted source of information, especially if the newcomer is not familiar with this type of service in their country of origin
• building relationships of credibility and trust among newcomer communities takes time and sometimes is only achievable when a person has been hired from that community to reach out to it
• it's difficult, especially with limited resources, to "get the word" out to newcomer communities. Some examples:
  • when translating/interpreting, how to choose which language without excluding?
  • how to best transmit information so that it is culturally appropriate, including the way we outreach (i.e. oral traditions vs. printed materials, etc.).
  • how is it possible to be culturally competent?
• service providers were surprised by how many newcomers are avid internet and social networking users/consumers
• there were a lot of parallels with how other client groups access or don't access health information effectively - it's a widespread issue, not just for newcomers
• there is a lack of information even among/within service providers and that can be a barrier, both for agencies and newcomers - it's important that service providers do effective inter-sectoral work to ensure that they don't work in isolation/silos
• information/knowledge expectations of newcomers when accessing service providers are very high
• when creating/envisioning service/information provision approaches, don't just focus on the topic/area of focus for the information, but also where the client is in their settlement continuum and what that might mean for the nature of the information they need/seek
• information overload issues occur for all, including when someone is familiar with the language/culture (example of a participant who moved to the United States for some time and had many difficulties navigating the health system) - systems and information are always different from what we are used to - why do we expect clients/newcomers to know their way around?
• we should not and cannot assume that clients had similar information/service experiences or assumptions that we have - client centric service provision is essential when providing information