Cultural Brokering: Maximizing the Conference Experience for Culturally Diverse Populations

Background: Health-related professional conferences have long been considered opportune venues for disseminating the latest, most up-to-date research and innovative discoveries to practitioners en masse. However, for health workers and others attending from underserved, culturally diverse communities, these large professional conferences can be overwhelming and the session selection process difficult. Much of the health content presented at these events is not tailored specifically for vulnerable populations and ultimately these attendees may feel that the content does not address their needs culturally and/or that the information provided is not relevant for their communities. To reduce these opinions and improve the conference experience, cultural brokering may be a viable approach for attracting and supporting attendees from these culturally and linguistically diverse communities.  

Program background: Native American and tribal stakeholders have traditionally attended a variety of U.S. EPA sponsored national meetings and health conferences specifically focused on improving indoor air quality (IAQ) and reducing associated health risks. Feedback from this audience indicated that although they saw value in the content presented at these events, they had difficulty determining how to apply lessons and best practices to their work. Therefore, in partnership with the U.S. EPA, the Cadmus Group, Inc. worked with tribal stakeholders to develop and conduct a workshop designed to address their concerns. The resulting tailored half-day, pre-conference program was offered at the 2011 Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools conference.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Workshop attendees represented diverse Native American and tribal populations who each worked within their communities to address wide ranging IAQ issues. During the workshop, attendees were presented with an IAQ primer, heard from experts implementing IAQ programming in tribal communities, and discussed specific needs and barriers to program implementation in their communities as peers. They also engaged in a brainstorming session to develop a preliminary strategy for improving IAQ efforts in their communities. In addition, attendees received recommendations about general conference sessions that were related to the topics discussed in the workshop and were encouraged to attend these sessions and consider the content presented in relation to their “next steps” strategies. Workshop evaluations indicated that the session significantly increased attendees’ knowledge of IAQ issues, significantly increased attendees’ confidence in their abilities to implement an IAQ program in their community and attendees felt much better prepared to join the general conference and make the most out of the experience.

Conclusions: The tailored workshop successfully prepared attendees from underserved or vulnerable populations to maximize their experience at this health-related professional conference.

Implications for research and/or practice: Creating a culturally relevant, population specific conference component may be a successful method for ensuring a more meaningful and empowered experience for attendees from underserved populations.