Communication and engagement of community members from ethnic minorities during COVID-19: a scoping review

Abstract

ObjectivesThis review examined the factors influencing communication and engagement with ethnic and racial minority groups in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aimed to answer two main questions: (1) what communication problems people from these communities typically faced during the pandemic? and (2) what strategies and recommendations were suggested to enhance communication and engagement for ethnic and racial minorities during the current COVID-19 pandemic and any similar events in the future?DesignScoping review.Data sourcesPubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsychINFO and CINAHL. Grey literature was searched within organisations’ websites and a Google search of key terms.Eligibility criteria for selecting studiesWe included original research, case studies, reports (including government and charity reports), systematic and scoping articles and literature reviews in English, published from January 2020 to August 2022.Data extraction and synthesisTwo researchers independently assessed the literature for eligibility and extracted data from the included literature. The selected papers were analysed and summarised into themes relevant to the research questions. The final review included 38 studies combining published academic papers and grey literature.ResultsKey themes relating to communication and engagement issues included a lack of trust in authority, a lack of access to information and ineffective communication channels and a lack of timely and culturally responsive materials. To reduce the issues, the papers spoke about the key role of community organisations to provide local support and community leaders as trusted spokespersons. Lastly, key recommendations to reduce inequity and strengthen future pandemic responses focused on the need for collaborations and consultations, increasing the number of bilingual workers and supporting community-led communication efforts.ConclusionsThe insights gained from the activities and experiences documented in this review during the COVID-19 pandemic should be incorporated into future decision-making and interventions to enhance communication and engagement strategies.

“It’s no use saying it in English”: A qualitative study exploring community leaders’ perceptions of the challenges and opportunities with translating and interpreting COVID-19 related public health messaging to reach ethnic minorities in Australia

“…Recent literature has reported the communication gap between CaLD members and the public health dissemination system, caused mainly by a lack of access to COVID-19 specific information and ineffective communication channels for CaLD groups and communities to receive necessary information [3,12,18,19,[28][29][30][31]. This was particularly problematic for those with low digital or English literacy levels, and older ethic minority adults [18,32].…”

“…While guidelines and reports highlight the crucial role of these information intermediaries in supporting communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, less is known about the experiences of these information intermediaries in terms of their perceptions of the COVID-19 response, the needs of their communities and their experiences in ‘bridging the gap’ between levels of government and the community in communicating pertinent COVID-19 information. Given the concerns about the Australian Government insufficiently considering the needs of CaLD communities in their public health response strategies and communication approaches to reduce the spread of COVID-19 [ 19 , 20 ], this research aimed to understand the factors that have impacted COVID-19 communication and engagement efforts during the pandemic from the perspective of key CaLD community and religious leaders. A further aim was to understand the processes that could be adopted to support future communication strategies, including promoting pandemic-related vaccines, as proposed by CaLD information intermediaries.…”

Community engagement in local governance: A review of USA and African strategies

“…Moreover, opportunities for cross-cultural studies are evident in the literature (Albert et al, 2017). stress the importance of understanding local community responses to climate-induced risks, providing insights for cross-cultural studies in climate adaptation strategies (Albert et al, 2017;Seale, 2023). discusses the key role of community organizations and leaders in providing local support, indicating opportunities for cross-cultural studies on community engagement during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Seale, 2023).…”

On the transcreation, format and actionability of healthcare translations

“…The experience of COVID-19 in superdiverse societies such as Australia has underscored the importance of having multilingual healthcare communication that members of different communities can locate quickly, understand, trust and act upon. In many countries, communication failures have been attributed, among other things, to translations that, although accurate and done by certified professionals, were hard for the target audience to understand, not timely, or otherwise not trusted, leading to ineffective messaging (O'Brien et al, 2021;Hajek et al, 2022;AuYoung et al, 2023;Bouyzourn et al, 2023;Seale et al, 2023). Faced with numerous language demands, changing messages and severe time constraints, governments applied their existing communication policies as best they could in an exceptional pandemic situation.…”

“…The purpose of this study is thus to analyse the quality of a sample of healthcare resources published by the Australian federal government and the Victorian state government, taken as practical examples of start texts and translations that may require transcreation. Given the indications that accessibility of COVID-19 information was a problem for multicultural communities (e.g., Hajek et al, 2022;Seale et al, 2023), our particular concern here is with the ways in which formatting and presentation can impact on effective communication. To assess these aspects, we use the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) (Shoemaker et al, 2014), developed specifically for the analysis of healthcare materials.…”