Role of cultural brokering in advancing holistic primary care for diabetes and obesity: a participatory qualitative study

Abstract

Objectives Diabetes and obesity care for ethnocultural migrant communities is hampered by a lack of understanding of premigration and postmigration stressors and their impact on social and clinical determinants of health within unique cultural contexts. We sought to understand the role of cultural brokering in primary healthcare to enhance chronic disease care for ethnocultural migrant communities.Design and setting Participatory qualitative descriptive–interpretive study with the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative in a Canadian urban centre. Cultural brokers are linguistic and culturally diverse community health workers who bridge cultural distance, support relationships and understanding between providers and patients to improve care outcomes. From 2019 to 2021, we met 16 times to collaborate on research design, analysis and writing.Participants Purposive sampling of 10 cultural brokers representing eight different major local ethnocultural communities. Data include 10 in-depth interviews and two observation sessions analysed deductively and inductively to collaboratively construct themes.Results Findings highlight six thematic domains illustrating how cultural brokering enhances holistic primary healthcare. Through family-based relational supports and a trauma-informed care, brokering supports provider–patient interactions. This is achieved through brokers’ (1) embeddedness in community relationships with deep knowledge of culture and life realities of ethnocultural immigrant populations; (2) holistic, contextual knowledge; (3) navigation and support of access to care; (4) cultural interpretation to support health assessment and communication; (5) addressing psychosocial needs and social determinants of health and (6) dedication to follow-up and at-home management practices.Conclusions Cultural brokers can be key partners in the primary care team to support people living with diabetes and/or obesity from ethnocultural immigrant and refugee communities. They enhance and support provider–patient relationships and communication and respond to the complex psychosocial and economic barriers to improve health. Consideration of how to better enable and expand cultural brokering to support chronic disease management in primary care is warranted.