8 February, 2005

The Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott MP, today will join leaders of Australia’s multicultural communities and National Prescribing Service (NPS) to officially launch the Multicultural Community Quality Use of Medicines Program.

The program, funded by the Australian Government, was developed by the National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS) in partnership with the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia (FECCA) and will today be launched during the International Transformations: Culture and the Environment in Human Development conference in Canberra.

“This new program aims to help people from multicultural backgrounds better understand their medicines through increased awareness of and access to credible and reliable information,” said Dr Lynn Weekes, CEO of NPS.

The program was guided by research that was undertaken at a national level by NPS and FECCA to assess the medicines issues specific to multicultural communities in Australia. The research comprised of two parts: in-depth interviews with people like GPs, pharmacists, community leaders and multicultural organisations; and also several focus groups with multicultural consumers.

The research assessed the specific issues and needs of consumers of medicines from different multicultural backgrounds. Preliminary results show that many people from multicultural backgrounds find communicating about their medicines difficult, and therefore often avoid raising concerns with their GP and pharmacist – a key message of this program.

“We know from other work that people’s experience of medicine use and the health system in their country of origin influences health beliefs and use of medicines. This research will add to our understanding of medicine use within Australia’s many multicultural communities. The research results will be published in April,” said Dr Weekes.

The NPS Multicultural Community QUM Program includes grants to multicultural community groups to hold local activities: firstly to promote the knowledge and skills needed to make decisions about medicines with their health professional; and secondly to help people find and use reliable and credible information about medicines.

Other activities include the development of Medimate (a consumer resource about Quality Use of Medicines) in languages other than English (such as Chinese, Greek, Italian and Vietnamese) and in order to reach broader ‘emerging’ communities, NPS is working with the Adult Migrant Education Service (AMES) to provide resources about medicines to those learning English.

During this first stage, the program will focus on the Chinese, Greek, Italian and Vietnamese communities.

The Multicultural Community Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) Program is a joint program run by NPS in partnership with FECCA. The program brings together FECCA’s expertise as the peak, national body representing Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse communities; and NPS’s expertise as Australia’s peak, independent, education and information provider about medicines.