Creation, Evaluation and Publication of Educational Materials

Immigrants’ personality is the product of experiences and expectations that can be vastly different. Therefore, their learning patterns can be different also.

For instance, some immigrants can be quick at formulating concepts, while don’t understand the approach. Or some nationalities view class attendance as a kind of a therapy—therefore they would do best in small private groups; while others look at learning as an occasion for a social gathering. The latter group does best in bigger meetings as well as use of audio/visual material.

These differences are due to cultural norms that have to be considered in planning learning events and publications targeted at immigrant populations.

IHEA believes that health education must begin "where the person is" and therefore all ethnic/racial/language groups deserve to receive health education in their own language and cultural context.

We also believe that ethnic and underserved communities themselves have to be involved in the production and evaluation of truly culturally sensitive health educational material. Our literature represents a rare partnership between the target communities and medical experts, resulting in the co-creation of a new praxis of health education. The emphasis is on two-way dialog on health matters with the target communities—not the printed material.

So far, IHEA has produced over 160 brochures in 45 languages about prevention and early detection of cancer and other chronic diseases. Unprecedented in its scope and methods, the production of each brochure involves research, volunteer recruitment, community activism and deft navigation of multicultural politics.