Ethnomed

Ethnomed: from http://healthlinks.washington.edu/, click on the ‘Care Provider’ tab. When you see this page, click on ‘Ethnomed’ under the Patient Education section.

History

EthnoMed began in 1994 through a collaborative effort between Community House Calls physicians and the Harborview Medical Center library director. The project has been funded by an Integrated Advanced Information Management System (IAIMS) implementation grant from the National Library of Medicine, together with support from the Allen Project Fund which is administered by the UW Libraries Administration. For a detailed history of EthnoMed’s origins and development please refer to “EthnoMed: A Medical Anthropology Work in Progress,” by Howard and Means, in The Library Web, edited by Julie M. Still, Information Today, Inc., 1997.

Background

EthnoMed is a clinical tool containing medical, cultural and community information about refugee groups and other non-English speaking immigrants living in the Seattle area. Its purpose is to make previously difficult to access information about culture, language, health, illness and community resources directly accessible to health care providers when they need it. For example, just before seeing a Cambodian patient with asthma, a provider can use a computer terminal to access EthnoMed and read about how the concept of asthma is translated in Cambodian and what common cultural and interpretive issues surround asthma management in the Cambodian community. A practitioner may also download patient education materials (some in the native language) to give to the patient at the end of the medical visit.

Content

Included in EthnoMed at the time of this writing are profiles on the Amharic, Cambodian, Eritrean, Oromo, Somali, Tigrinian, and Vietnamese cultural groups. Other ethnic groups will be included as materials are written. One file has been created for each cultural group. Each file is identical in

structure so that once familiar with the organization of a file representing one population, a clinician can quickly navigate the other files. The following information is available for each cultural group:

• A brief cultural description

• A section on health and illness

• Information about community resources

• Patient education materials

• Interactive user dialogue site

Collaborative Opportunities

The information included in EthnoMed has been researched and reviewed by health care providers and researchers who work with refugee and immigrant patients. EthnoMed is intended to be a community voice, and thus the majority of materials on the Website are produced in conjunction with community members. Feedback from the target population is invited at all times; user feedback is essential. As providers learn from their patients, we urge them to share this information on the EthnoMed site. Through interactive growth and development, we hope that EthnoMed will capture the dynamic, changing nature of the cultures involved, reflecting traditional beliefs and the subtle changes which come with acculturation. Community House Calls staff welcome the receipt of short (one to two

page) documents on cultural and health topics ranging from teen violence to breastfeeding to the common cold, for possible inclusion on the website. Examples of desirable topics include: How do Cambodians express the concept of depression? What are Eritrean folk remedies for fever? Do Vietnamese refugees practice male circumcision? Patient education materials in native languages are also welcome. As EthnoMed develops, we hope to collaborate with other groups in developing similar files for other ethnic communities.