Bridging the gap between health care professionals and communities

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Bridging the gap between health care professionals and communities

Hartley, S; (2004) Bridging the gap between health care professionals and communities. Community Eye Health , 17 (51) 38 - 39. Green open access

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Abstract

Bridging the gap between health care professionals and communities is a difficult task. It involves establishing a culture of community participation and improving the process of communication between the two groups. Effective communication between these groups is not easy. The people concerned often speak different languages, have different levels of education and competence, different priorities in life and generally understand things differently. In addition, the greatest proportion of communication is transmitted non-verbally, through gestures, facial expressions and ‘body language’. This is important for two reasons. Firstly, any feelings of pity, superiority, frustration, dismissal or respect, will almost certainly be transmitted through these alternative modes of communication, they carry much more powerful messages than those contained in what is said. Secondly, many of these non-verbal messages, with the major exception of speech intonation, are visual and are therefore missed by people who cannot see well enough to pick them up. This combines to give an effective recipe for communication breakdown. This article will examine the process of communication in terms of need, opportunity and means. It will also examine the potential benefits of improved communication between health care professionals and community members in terms of what health care professionals might learn from the community. It is important to remember that community members include people with visual impairments and their families.

Type:	Article
Title:	Bridging the gap between health care professionals and communities
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Publisher version:	http://www.cehjournal.org/0953-6833/17/jceh_17_51_...
Language:	English
Additional information:	Journal content is licensed for general distribution under the non-commercial Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-profit purposes, provided that the author, or photographer, and the Community Eye Health Journal are acknowledged.
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/174041