Funded Projects

Videos to Improve Refugee Health Education

Project Year

2022

City & State

Cincinnati, Ohio

Program Name

CATCH Resident

Topic

Immigrant/Migrant/Refugee/Undocumented

Program Description

Problem: Refugee communities in Cincinnati face many barriers to accessing inclusive and equitable health upon resettlement to the United States (US). Newly resettled refugees experience an increased burden of disease, which is driven by factors including their migration experience, trauma, lack of access to care in their country of origin and lack of understanding of the US health system. While this highlights a need for robust healthcare access on arrival to the United States, this is unfortunately not the current reality. Community advocates in Cincinnati have identified key gaps including: understanding the structure of the healthcare system, challenges navigating the health insurance system and language accessibility. As a result many refugees have delays accessing and staying connected to appropriate healthcare. Recently, with the backdrop of a global pandemic and the transition of some services to virtual, new barriers have been created and prior barriers have been exacerbated. Primary Setting/Children Affected: Cincinnati has become home to more than 25,000 refugees since the 1980s, and 42% of all refugees are children. This project will be implemented with the refugee communities served by Refugee Connect, an organization whose mission to the connect refugees with resources they need to rebuild their lives in the United States. Project Goal/Proposed Intervention: To better support refugee clients in navigating cultural and linguistic barriers to accessing healthcare, RefugeeConnect utilizes 11 Community Navigators who speak Arabic, Dari, French, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, Lingala, Nepali, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Hakha Chin and each represent a specific refugee community.These navigators serve as a resource for support and education as they help refugee families navigate the healthcare and education systems. When physician partners and Community Navigators met together for a preliminary needs assessment, navigators identified key knowledge gaps including: 1) use of prescription medications, 2) when to seek care in the emergency department vs the primary care setting, and 3) navigating health insurance in the US. Partners and clients identified videos that can be shared through What’s App or text messages or in person on a device as preferred way to receive health information especially during the pandemic. With this in mind, the team developed a plan to produce to develop health education videos and evaluate their utility in improving knowledge gaps for refugee families. Refugee Connect has an existing partnership with a second organization, Refugee Response that have the capability to animate and translate video content. The goal of this proposed project is to develop the 3 videos alongside refugee stakeholders in multiple languages with the two partner organizations and elicit feedback from Community Navigators and families on their utility. Anticipated Outcomes: Expected outcomes include 1) report from Community Navigators at frequency of use videos in meeting or sharing with families 2) frequency of online access of the videos directly by refugee families, 3) survey evaluation from navigators and families on utility. Longer term, these health education resources are expected to improved access to and utilization of healthcare resources in the topics areas discussed, including making an attending primary care appointments, appropriate use of prescription medications, and access to health insurance.

Project Goal

To develop health education resources that will have a meaningful impact on connection to and utilization of healthcare resources by refugee families in Cincinnati Ohio.

Project Objective 1

Develop three animated health education videos translated into at least 5 languages based on community-identified topics by December 2022.

Project Objective 2

Disseminate video via the community navigators and survey 122 families from January to May 2023.

Project Objective 3

Evaluate before and after dissemination rates of connection of Refugee Connect families to primary care and health insurance resource during the period of health education video use

AAP District

District V

Institutional Name

Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Contact 1

Nicole Damari