2020 Rainmaker Readiness - Enhancing health communication with people who primarily speak an Aboriginal language – learning from COVID19 to improve communication in primary health care services.

Communication between health staff and Aboriginal consumers who do not share the same language or cultural background is challenging. Achieving effective communication is crucial to ensuring high quality, ethical and safe health care. Equitable access to meaningful health information required to make informed decisions depends on culturally and linguistically responsive communication. The recent surge in production of resources to assist speakers of Aboriginal languages to understand the rapidly developing information related to COVID19 provides a valuable opportunity to better understand the key elements of effective communication with this population, privileging the perspectives of Yolŋu experts and end-users. This qualitative research project will work in collaboration with Yolŋu community-based Aboriginal researchers, language experts and knowledge authorities to explore effectiveness of communication in the context of COVID19. These findings can inform future research and action to improve health communication more widely in primary health care services.