The Documentary
This project is planned, administered and separately funded from the main studies.
Aim
The Documentary project aims to explore the real life journeys made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with chronic illness as they negotiate their health care needs.
Background
Australians from marginalised and minority cultural groups suffer excessively from premature morbidity and mortality due to chronic disease. They are obliged to negotiate significant barriers in Australian health systems to gain access to proven health interventions. Previous work by our research team has found pervasive miscommunication between users of health services and the providers of their care. Not only is this substantially unrecognised within systems but can lead to dangerous levels and standards of care. When health professionals and their patients come from different social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, the development of a shared understanding of the illness experience is crucial. Resources are sorely needed to facilitate this process.
Intervention
- Development of a series of video modules on cross-cultural healthcare. The modules will focus on the experiences of Indigenous and non-English-speaking Australians in negotiating health systems for necessary care for their chronic diseases.
- Development of an accompanying detailed facilitator's guide to provide information about the specific health issues and situations covered in the videos and to provide more general information regarding competence in communicating effectively with diverse groups.
- Production of a broadcast quality documentary aimed at a mainstream television audience.
Methods and participants
The video production methodology will be performance ethnography containing industry standard film production process. The project gains significantly through being informed by the experiences and analyses of the producers of the highly acclaimed four-part video series, 'World's Apart', in the United States.
The project will track the forging of relationships between the research team and Indigenous Australian communities and health providers. Participants will play an important role in the chronicling of the stories and the production process will at all times seek to accommodate cultural sensitivity. The project will capture the real-life experiences of people with chronic disease and highlight the barriers they must overcome both in their personal lives and in their interactions with the health system.
Interviews with family members and medical staff will highlight the variety of important and challenging cross cultural issues which arise in providing competent care for patients that encourages and gives precedence to respect, openness and wholeness.
Representation of cultural diversity across place of residence, location of health care provision, sex, age and use of English or other languages will be maximised. We will place a distinctive emphasis on the stories of Aboriginal Australians. The documentaries will be shot in cinema-verité style
Evaluation and Expected Outcomes
- Through exploring different perspectives on health and wellbeing, illness, and accessing and utilising health services, we hope to provide critical insights into how miscommunication arises and how it affects health outcomes.
- We expect to build capacity within the health service arena for openly engaging in topics that are traditionally difficult to discuss.
- Together with the facilitator's guide, we expect these video modules to form a key component in training workshops to improve skills for the provision of cross-cultural health care from student through to specialist levels.
- We expect to reach a broad mainstream audience through the production of a compelling social documentary for broadcast television.