Title
Multilingualism in providing quality mental health care to migrants – needs, resources and practices
Funding
”La Caixa” Foundation (Spain), Wellcome Trust (UK), Volkswagen Foundation (Germany) and Novo Nordisk Foundation (Denmark)
Duration
2022 – 2026 ( 4 years)
PI
Mike Mösko, Department of Medical Psychology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
Partner
Kristin Bührig, Department of Language, Literature, Media; University Hamburg, Germany
Barbara Schouten, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Ted Sanders, Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Leslie Swartz, Department of Psychology & Christine Anthonissen, Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, South-Africa
Brian J. Hall, Department of Psychology, University of Macao, China
Razvan Chereches, Department of Public Health, College of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
Summary
The aim of this interdisciplinary project is to investigate and develop improvements to communication between (mental) health care providers ((M)HCP) and migrants who experience mental disorders and do not (sufficiently) speak the languages of the health care professionals, ultimately enhancing the quality of mental health care. The work-packages (WPs) are:
WP 0 (Organization): Project communication, exchange with local migrant
communities and (M)HCP at each site; engage young researchers.
WP 1: Identify current policies and practicies of health care systems in
multilingual settings, on a macro- and meso-level.
WP 2: Assess barriers and resources in the communication on a micro and
meso-level from perspectives of (M)HCP, patients and relatives.
WP 3: Quality assessment on technological devices and its applicability.
WP 4: (A) Recommendations for (M)HCP addressing language und cultural
capacity gaps in providing services to people with mental disorders, and (B)
information tools for migrants towards coping mechanisms in multilingual
health care provider-patient settings.
WP 5: develop and pilot-test a training for local (M)HCP to strengthen
contextually appropriate multilingual health communication.
WP 6: disseminate the results in scientific publications; final conference.
The project’s partnerships enable a perspective that supersedes the limitations of single national perspectives. It acknowledges global connectivity that will facilitate insight from both the global north and global south, considers the differing resources and contexts, and challenges the current imbalance and bias in the field towards knowledge from the global north. Transnational exchange will be maintained by regular meetings, workshops and exchanges. The project addresses language matters in providing quality medical care, while also recognizing associated basic international human rights, as described in target 3.8 of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 of the United Nations.
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