Improving Culturally Competent Care for Vietnamese Families with Young Children: Development of the Viet Family Health Website

Limited knowledge of culturally-specific practices that support parenting and early childhood development is a major barrier to providing quality care to Vietnamese families with young children. We will present the products of a community-based participatory practice project, Improving Culturally Competent Care to Vietnamese Families with Young Children, designed to support culturally appropriate services related to family mental health and nutrition. The project was a collaboration between the key providers of early childhood services to Vietnamese young children in Massachusetts' largest Vietnamese community - the community health center, early intervention agency, and WIC program. The community partners worked together to develop print and multi-media materials targeted to both community members and community-based health care and service providers. Materials included: 1) bilingual, low-literacy materials about symptoms of maternal depression and its impact on children; 2) a case study targeted to public health professionals that illustrates culturally normative views about child feeding; 3) a pictorial guide that introduces health care and community-based service providers to common Vietnamese foods, their nutritional content, and use in traditional cooking; and 4) digital stories, which are brief multimedia personal narratives presenting community members' experiences related to parenting. We will present the project website, vietfamilyhealth.org, which was developed as the venue to view and disseminate materials to a national audience. This community-based practice model can serve as an example of public health practice that promotes health equity in diverse populations.