Amplifying Marginalised Voices Through Advocacy: Community-Informed Curriculum Development for Cultural Safety in...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Inclusion Health
• Cultural Safety

Background:

• Homeless individuals face significant health disparities, with limited representation in medical curricula.
• Community-based advocates and lived experience are crucial for developing effective health education.
• This study addresses the gap by integrating advocacy and lived experience into medical training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a medical education module on homeless health.
• To embed community-based advocacy and lived-experience expertise into the curriculum.
• To advance cultural safety in medical education for homeless populations.

Main Methods:

• Collaborative module development using Kern's Six Steps of Curriculum Development.
• Needs assessment via focus groups with community advocates experiencing homelessness.
• Module delivery to graduate-entry medical students, evaluated through open-ended questionnaires.

Main Results:

• Students recognized life experiences, demographic hardship, and healthcare access barriers.
• Analysis revealed additional themes on survival priorities and medication adherence challenges.
• Most students acknowledged the importance of cultural safety and advocacy in homeless health.

Conclusions:

• Integrating community voices and patient perspectives improved curriculum content and delivery.
• Students demonstrated increased compassion, reflexivity, and awareness of health inequities.
• This scalable model effectively embeds cultural safety into inclusion health education.