Safeguarding Cultural Sensitivities in Healthcare Communications
While the science behind healthcare and pharmaceuticals is globally accepted, the way healthcare is perceived, trusted and accessed around the world varies greatly. And these differences are deeply rooted in cultural customs and beliefs.
Culture defines how illness is viewed within society. Culture influences public trust in the healthcare sector. Culture can determine how well a certain medication or treatment is taken up. Cultural beliefs and societal norms even dictate how certain people – women in particular – access healthcare.
Given the raft of different perceptions and customs around health, any globally focused tools and communications relating to healthcare must take these cultural sensitivities into account. Not doing so could cause cultural misunderstandings and offense and, in the worst case, pose a risk to people’s health.
Here we look at the crucial role of cultural consultation in the medical localization workflow.
How culture defines healthcare
Just as healthcare professionals must take into account the diverse cultural values, beliefs and practices of the communities they serve, medical communications must consider the potential cultural sensitivities of target audiences to ensure they fully resonate.
While a tool or campaign designed with a Western audience in mind may be perfectly translatable from a language perspective, this may not be the case culturally. Failing to adapt language, imagery, symbols and tone with from a cultural perspective could easily lead to cultural misunderstandings. And in the healthcare field, such misunderstandings can have real-life consequences, such as mistrust in medical services, non-compliance with health advice and overall disengagement with vital health services.
There have been many studies around how different cultures perceive and interact with healthcare.
Take mental health as an example. While Western societies have become increasingly more open to and aware of mental health conditions and their causes, mental illness is highly stigmatized in other cultures. In some Asian and Latin-American cultures, for example, mental health issues are perceived as a sign of personal weakness. In some African cultures, mental issues are often attributed to spiritual or supernatural causes. In Arab societies, mental illness can be viewed as a form of divine punishment.
Another culturally sensitive topic is gender, and specifically how women and girls access healthcare. In Islamic cultures, there are strict rules around the touching of female bodies during medical examinations and treatments. In some regions, male doctors are not allowed to see female patients, while some doctors are instructed not to treat any female patient who is not accompanied by a male guardian.
Elsewhere around the world, many indigenous and minority populations have a general mistrust of mainstream healthcare and the medical authorities, stemming from their own cultural beliefs as well as historical injustices.
Add to this the difference in communication styles and preferences around the world, and the fact different cultures have different ways of perceiving colours, symbols and imagery in general, creating globally appropriate healthcare communications can feel like treading a tightrope.
The role of cultural consultation
Cultural consultation is generally considered the crucial step in the localization workflow. It acts as a safety check for any brand, campaign or communication intended for international audiences, by identifying potential linguistic and cultural challenges and red flags, and providing recommendations on how to address these, before launch.
In the context of healthcare, cultural consultation becomes all the more important, as cultural misunderstandings don’t just lead to embarrassment or offence, but could have serious health consequences, such as critical medical advice being misinterpreted or public health warnings being ignored.
Cultural consultation assesses every aspect of a campaign or tool, from core creative elements such as words, images, colours and symbols, to tone and communication style, to potential engagement and acceptance within the focus market.
These checks are supplemented by key market research and insights, focusing on the core sector and intended target audience. The outcome? More relevant, culturally appropriate communications, leading to improved patient engagement, satisfaction and trust.
How Mother Tongue Can Help
At Mother Tongue, healthcare focused cultural consultation is carried out by specialized medical copywriters and strategists, who combine their in-depth medical knowledge with brand and campaign specialisms.
As well as analyzing copy, visuals and campaign strategy, they can provide an overview of the local competitive landscape, brand perception and media mix to ensure medical communications fully resonate and are culturally appropriate.
Get in touch to see how our cultural consultation services can support your global communications.