That is a relatively recent theme. Just for your information, we initially started with five theme teams--caregiving, for example, and elder abuse. About 18 months ago we were asked by a number of our members and people in the public to look at the concept of ethnicity, recognizing the diversity of this country.
Chinese Canadians make up one huge population group for us. It's not that the health care issues for Chinese people themselves may be different; how they respond to those strategies that may be different; how they interact with their neighbours, and the terms they use, may be different. So we're trying to get an enhanced sense of that specific cultural group, of how they would define the terms, how they would use the terms, what behaviours work for them or not, and how that differs from the larger Canadian context so that the information can go back into practice.
That applies to Chinese Canadians, but it also applies to those from India and from Ghana. It's just understanding the diversity of this country and putting it back into practice every time.
A common example is with some of our recent immigrants from Thailand. For the older adults, the word “cancer” does not exist in that vocabulary, but it's part of their health care reality. The word “depression” may not exist for older adults from Thailand, but the expressions for feeling blue and feeling sad do exist.
It's to give us as health care professionals a clue so that when you're working with a certain ethnocultural group, you really begin to understand the language, and the choices they make, and you can better enhance and support their health.