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Multicultural Health Communication Service

The NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service was established in 1997 as a result of NSW Health's plan, Health Services for a Culturally Diverse Society (1995). The plan identified the need for the development of a co-ordinated statewide approach to provide information about health issues and health services to people who speak languages other than English.

Service

The NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service provides a number of services to health professionals working with ethnic communities, including information and advice on appropriate ways to communicate with people of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.

They answer enquiries about all aspects of multicultural communication and provide consultancy services, including communication and social marketing campaigns targeting people from CALD backgrounds.

Multicultural Communication also provide advice to other agencies and workers undertaking research with CALD communities. They provide strategic advice to NSW Health, and handle enquiries from health staff about all aspects of multicultural communication.

Multicultural Communication:

  • provides advice to NSW Health staff and other agencies and workers undertaking research with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities
  • provides strategic advice to NSW Health, and handle enquiries from health staff about all aspects of multicultural communication
  • manages a multilingual website with more than 450 publications on health in a wide range of languages. New publications are added regularly. All multilingual resources are endorsed by NSW Health, and there are links to other sites which have multilingual health information
  • produces multilingual health resources, as well as Guidelines, Protocols and Policies for staff working with multilingual information
  • undertakes research, communication and social marketing campaigns targeting people from cultural and linguistic diverse backgrounds
  • produces Polyglot, a quarterly newsletter for staff working in the area of multicultural health

Recommended links

This information was originally published on healthdirect - Multicultural Health Communication Service.

Last reviewed: September 2019

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