Health Professionals

Lyfe Languages

Are you a clinician who wants to communicate with and assist your Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients with various health domains? Lyfe Languages is an open-source on-line platform that translates medical terminologies into Indigenous languages. Lyfe Languages is led by young Indigenous Language Champions who work with their elders on translations. Culturally appropriate Indigenous text and audio translations are recorded and are accessible for health professional/clinicians to use with their patients via the platform.

Accurate and culturally appropriate language is critical to healthcare and innovation. Currently, there is a communication gap between health professionals and Indigenous Australians, which significantly impacts social and health outcomes.

The web applications features purpose-built rare disease section in collaboration with the Rare Disease Awareness Education Support and Training (RArEST) Project https://rarevoices.org.au/rarest-project/. This section includes resources for health professionals and people living with rare diseases and their families. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are one of the priority populations identified in the Australian Government’s National Strategic Action Plan for Rare Diseases (the Action Plan). The Action Plan is the first nationally coordinated effort to address rare disease in Australia.

The wen application also features a purpose-built pregnancy section in collaboration with Womens & Infants Research Foundation (WIRF) https://wirf.com.au/. The section includes resources such as preterm birth words, key pregnancy information and frequently asked questions during pregnancy. Preterm birth prevention is the leading cause of death and disability in children up to five in Australian, 1 in 12 babies are born premature; which increases to 1 in 6 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The Lyfe Languages web app is a living resources, which mean new translations and resources will continue to be added to the platform over time.

Lyfe Languages has been supported by the Hanrine Foundation and the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation.

View the Lyfe Languages web app overview, or login now.

Rare Voices Australia, through extensive consultation, have developed the “Rare Disease Resources for Priority Populations” webpages. These include:

“Rare Disease Resources for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community”

“Rare Disease Resources for the Multicultural Community“

“Rare Disease Resources for the Regional Rural and Remote Community“

If you are interested to understand how these resources were developed, you can see the “Developing the Rare Disease Resource Collection for Priority Populations” webinar.