Utopia Refugees and Asylum Seekers Health
Oct 2018 - Jul 2019
Service Design
Human-centered Design
Strategic Design
Logo Design
Infographics
The increasing population of refugees in Australia poses significant challenges to the delivery of refugee healthcare services. Literature reviews indicate that women health and the lack of health literacy are two key areas of concern due to a mix of accessibility issues, language and cultural barriers. This project is embedded in Utopia Refugee and Asylum Seeker Health, focusing on the unique needs of the Burmese women refugees and the challenges they face when navigating the current services in Victoria.
Literature reviews indicate that women health and the lack of health literacy are two key areas of concern. It is due to a mix of reasons, such as accessibility issues, language and cultural barriers. This project focuses on a particular group of refugees, the Burmese women, and identifies the unique characteristics and challenges they face when navigating the current services. This design project intends to empower refugee women to take active control of their health through accessible entry of the healthcare service and enhanced understanding of health information using a culturally relevant design approach.
As part of the background research, the user journey map is created to outline the experience of the service from the patient’s perspective. Through visualising the touchpoints of the journey, it can be seen that accessibility to the service and cultural understanding of health information are two critical challenges. This project is now in its ideation phase. It will explore ways to ease the worry of trust issues and help refugee women to gain better health through education and community involvement.
The comm+unity project devises a design strategy for Utopia to empower Burmese women refugee to take active control of their health. The information pack provides accessible information and improves the understanding of women health using a culturally relevant approach, and the educational workshop facilitates conversations using visual prompts and interactive activities. The design materials help guide the discussion and can be used as a teaching tool among the family.
