Disseminating evidence-based, multilingual mental health resources at scale – examining resource development and deployment within a digital mental health service

Abstract

Background: Australia is a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) nation, with 1-in-4 Australians speaking a language other than English at home. More than 250,000 Australians from CALD backgrounds experience some form of mental illness every year; however accessible and culturally appropriate mental health resources are limited. This project aimed to develop and disseminate scalable, multilingual digital mental health resources.   Project setting and methods: THISWAYUP (thiswayup.org.au) is an established, Australian digital mental health service that delivers evidence-based mental health treatment programs and resources via the internet. In collaboration with the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service, a suite of evidence-informed mental health resources (infographics and worksheets) were translated and culturally adapted into 10 non-English languages. The resources were embedded within the service website for free download in July 2021 and launched via network advertising to >150,000 current services users and >30,000 registered health professionals. Webpage views and resource reach were tracked via Google analytics.   Results and discussion: Since July 2021, the multilingual resource webpage has been viewed a total of 32,873 times (averaging ~1260 views per month). Resources in simplified Chinese (Mandarin) and Spanish have been most commonly viewed and downloaded to date. Embedding multilingual, culturally adapted mental health resources within an existing, English-language digital mental health service in Australia was successfully achieved. Leveraging an established service model and mature community user network facilitated wide reach. These findings suggest there is an appetite within the Australian community for accessible, multilingual mental health resources. Further work exploring targeted dissemination strategies is ongoing.