Working with multicultural communities
We work directly with communities facing social and structural disadvantages. Learn more about our work below.
Effective communications for emergencies
Burnet researchers worked with the North East Multicultural Association (NEMA) based in Wangaratta, Victoria, local emergency service providers and community members to co-design communication resources for emergencies such as fires, floods and storms.
“We know that effective communication is a really critical part of the emergency management response, because people need to be able to access information to take action that can potentially save their lives,” Dr Caitlin Douglass, a Burnet senior research officer, said.
Find out more about the Multicultural Emergency Management Initiative.
Community-led public health communications
We've worked with multicultural communities in Victoria to build better connections between these communities, researchers and government. We ran workshops together with groups including Melbourne's Indian community, the Muslim community in Darebin, Pasifika young people and South Sudanese young people.
Through the Victorian Ongoing Initiative for Community Engagement (VOICE), we built on community strengths and good practices during the pandemic.
“We draw on the things we learned with the pandemic, take those lessons forward and think about how we can apply them to strengthen public health practice with multicultural communities.
“It’s also about how we can use digital technology to support us to enhance that sustainability.”
Our experts
Our Infectious Diseases Implementation Science working group is skilled at working with multicultural communities and partnering with different organisations to: understand public health priorities, to explore complex topics and draw on findings to create products and programs that aim to improve health equity.