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Title

Intercultural communication, food safety and environmental health practice: a professional development model

Author(s)

McKernan, Helen;  Dunn, Louise A.

Abstract

Dealing with different language and cultural groups in the food industry is becoming increasingly complex as new settler groups move into food businesses. This project involved the building and implementation of an intercultural communication professional development program for Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) in Victoria. The project highlighted that EHOs are faced with a number of challenges when implementing food safety legislation with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) food businesses. This included working in a regulatory and educative role, balancing food safety requirements with realistic and achievable outcomes, and the need for more evidence-based knowledge about the safety of specific cultural foods and practices. Understanding the cultural traditions, customs and rituals was seen as a high priority to improve the engagement with CALD proprietors. The pedagogical approach adopted for the professional development program proved to be a successful model in enhancing EHOs’ skills in this area. The project showed that a greater sharing of expertise, resources and collaboration on problem solving internally and externally in the local government environment would enhance EHOs’ effectiveness. EHOs recommended that practical strategies for dealing with these issues should also be integrated into tertiary coursework in preparation for industry experience.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences. Institute for Social Research

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences. Environment and Biotechnology Centre

Source

Environmental Health, Vol. 9, no. 3-4 (2009), pp. 16-30

Publication year

2009

FOR Code(s)

05 Environmental Sciences;  06 Biological Sciences;  11 Medical and Health Sciences

Keyword(s)

Environmental health practice;  Food safety;  Intercultural communication;  Minority groups;  Professional development

Publisher

Environmental Health Australia

ISSN

1444-5212

Publisher URL

http://journal.eh.org.au/archive.php

Copyright

Copyright © 2009 Environmental Health. Published version of the paper reproduced here for personal, non-commercial use only with the kind permission of Environmental Health Australia.

Full text

Peer reviewed