Health talk in language they can understand (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Health talk in language they can understand

September 10, 2010
Australia

A dictionary in Yolngu will counter fear and ignorance, writes Lindsay
Murdoch.

When some Yolngu Aborigines living in north-east Arnhem Land were asked last
year about their understanding of a heart attack, they replied that it was
an alien disease where an agent or foreign body attacks someone's heart.

A stroke, they told researchers, was also a term unknown in their
vocabulary: they thought it meant soothing a sick person.

For decades Western doctors and health workers have struggled to communicate
with indigenous people from remote communities for whom English is their
second, third or even fourth language.

Access full article below:
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/health-talk-in-language-they-can-understand-20100909-153bl.html
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