Addressing health inequities via community engagement : optimizing pain rehabilitation for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities

Western societies are becoming increasingly diverse, owing to changing patterns of international migration. Accompanying such diversity is a number of societal challenges, including challenges for the delivery of healthcare by systems that have traditionally been developed for assumed monocultural populations. This potentially results in a health system and healthcare providers that are unprepared for the unique needs of culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD), creating inequitable healthcare outcomes for some of the most vulnerable populations. This chapter explores the concept of socioculturally inclusive healthcare for diverse ethnocultural communities, focusing on cases drawn from the authors' chronic pain and physical rehabilitation research. The examples herein highlight potential flaws that may emerge when sociocultural context is not inherently part of the design or delivery of healthcare and calls for a reflection on current practices. This chapter offers a community participatory practice model of collaborative service and treatment design that illustrates how healthcare organizations and healthcare providers alike can evolve their practices to better meet the needs of diverse communities.