MEHPEV videos is a recently launched project by Dr. Kathy Cao to provide multilingual eye health care education materials as a tool for ethnic communities and their health care practitioners.
With the expanding multicultural population in Canada, language barrier has become a major hindrance to healthcare access. According to Statistics Canada (2012), almost 20% of the Canadian population reported speaking a language other than English and French at home. Toronto, the largest multicultural city in Canada, has 1.8 million such residents. With this trend of increasing ethnic diversity comes a priority need to provide multilingual materials for eye health care. Public education materials are currently available only in our official languages of English and French.
Dr. Kathy Cao’s project addresses this healthcare need for eye care. The project proposes a series of multilingual eye health public education videos (MEHPEV)in the top nonofficial languages spoken in Canada (Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Persian (Farsi), Russian, Italian, Portuguese) as well as English and French.
The MEHPEV videos will educate vulnerable patients on topics such as how to access eye care, the importance and frequency of regular eye examinations, causes of blindness, early detection and treatment.
Dr. Cao’s plans to fund this project by applying for sponsorship from a variety of agencies, community groups and individual donations.