This project focused on increasing knowledge of Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute treatment evidence among clinicians who care for refugees, as well as professional interpreters and refugee community leaders, and provides guidance on how to discuss treatment options with patients.

In partnership with Pennsylvania’s Refugee Resettlement Program, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Refugee Health Program and Multi-Cultural Health Evaluation Delivery System, Inc., we focused on increasing knowledge of PCORI’s treatment evidence among clinicians who care for refugees, as well as professional interpreters and refugee community leaders, and providing guidance on how to discuss treatment options with patients. As a first step, we developed a brief, provider-oriented summary of PCORI evidence on PTSD treatment for adult refugees. Next, we created a multi-lingual glossary for accurately and sensitively discussing PTSD treatment recommendations with refugees from a variety of backgrounds, which contains a list of PTSD-related terms and phrases. You can find these glossaries here:

• Arabic

• Karen

• Swahili

• Nepali

With support from PolicyLab’s communications team and Pennsylvania’s Refugee Health Program, we disseminated these materials to clinicians, professional interpreters and refugee leaders through multiple platforms like social media, listservs, websites, webinars and presentations in order to increase awareness of the research. We then surveyed clinicians and other stakeholders to measure changes in their awareness of PTSD treatment recommendations.

In September 2020, our team hosted "Talking About PTSD: Improving Communication and Care for Refugee Patients," a webinar during which we discussed the challenges of communicating mental health treatment options across language and cultural differences and how these new resources can help foster better communication between clinicians, professional medical interpreters and refugee patients. You can find a recording of this webinar here. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our team also shared resources and strategies for community leaders who are assisting refugee community members experiencing increased stress or trauma during the pandemic through a series of webinars. These webinars were recorded in Arabic, Burmese, English (ASL), Nepali and Swahili.  Through these recorded virtual events, we hope to increase provider and community awareness of resources available to help immigrant families cope with stress.