Open AccessImproving access to multilingual health information for newcomers to Canada
Author(s) -
Victoria Gallo Stampino
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the journal of the canadian health libraries association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.159
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1708-6892
DOI - 10.5596/c07-003
Subject(s) - public relations , health care , government (linguistics) , immigration , work (physics) , business , population , language barrier , multilingualism , political science , internet privacy , knowledge management , sociology , medicine , computer science , environmental health , philosophy , mechanical engineering , pedagogy , linguistics , law , engineering
Canada's immigrant and refugee population is a vulnerable group in our health care system with specific information needs. Newcomers to Canada face certain socioeconomic, cultural–linguistic, and systemic barriers to access to health care that government, social agencies, and health care organizations work to overcome. To address some of the communication barriers, many health organizations develop information resources such as online brochures and education handouts. Several organizations offer specifically tailored multilingual publications to meet newcomers' information needs and write them using cross-cultural approaches. However, multilingual health information may be hard to locate and is not readily available through major Canadian consumer Web sites. This article discusses the advantages of sharing multilingual publications online and asks whether a central portal or repository is a possible solution for making publications more widely available across Canada.