Communicating effectively with inclusion health populations: 2022 ICCH symposium.

OBJECTIVE

To describe communication strategies for clinical practice that allow practitioners to work more effectively with marginalised population groups and to discuss how to incorporate these into medical practice.

METHODS

Active practitioners working in inclusion health and people with lived experience of homelessness and the asylum-seeking process shared their perspectives in the symposium at the 2022 International Conference on Communication in Healthcare (ICCH) and a subsequent conference on empathy in healthcare. The views of attendees were sought.

SYMPOSIUM DISCUSSION: We describe the perspectives shared at the symposia under two main themes: communication needs in people experiencing homelessness and migrant populations, and trauma-informed practice.

CONCLUSIONS

People experiencing homelessness have more communication challenges compared to the general adult population. Migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking populations also face the complexity of negotiating unfamiliar healthcare, legal and social systems with the added burden of language barriers. Trauma-informed practice provides a useful framework that can improve communication with these groups.