New workshop starts process of research into digital health literacy for people from migrant and refugee backgrounds.

The Centre for Culture, Ethnicity & Health ran a successful workshop at the end of February, to start an investigative process into how people from migrant and refugee backgrounds engage with health information through digital sources. The workshop was an initiative formed with the University of Melbourne and Paper Giant funded by a small seeding grant from the University of Melbourne’s Research Unit in Public Cultures.

The workshop also acted as a pilot test to help understand and select activities used in co-design research methods to help understand participants needs better. The sessions was also designed to find out if women from migrant and refugee backgrounds have any  concerns about health information privacy, access and security and identify learning needs for women from migrant and refugee backgrounds in relation to data/digital health literacy.

Pregnant and postpartum women participated in the group from countries including Sudan, Ethiopia, Vietnam, China and New Zealand. The day included discussions and activities that explored many ideas that were of interest to the group.

The workshop revealed many interesting facts that will be published in upcoming research. High levels of ownership of mobile devices in participants and a high level of digital literacy in the use of devices to search for information and entertainment in languages from their country of participant’s origin was discovered. Members of the group expressed a strong desire to increase skills and an interest in learning more about relevant health information online. Participants were actively engaged in the process and also expressed little concern around ideas of data privacy. We look forward to seeing this project continue and to discover more about how health information online is accessed in our community and emerging attitudes towards it.

The CEH has created research (and worked with researchers) for 21 years to help improve health outcomes for our community. Our stream leader for research, policy and evaluation is Dr Ruth De Souza if you would like to learn more about this program or our other research please email ruthd@www.ceh.org.au .