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best practice 8

Be Culturally Responsible

Resources to support you

UPL Guidance Document UPL Style Guide

 

When we communicate in culturally responsible ways, we help remove barriers to understanding, regardless of background, language, culture, or circumstance.​

Patients bring a wide range of cultural backgrounds, values, and beliefs, which influence how they interpret health information, how they talk about their condition, who they trust, and how they make decisions. We must be intentional in how we create content, honoring cultural perspectives, avoiding assumptions, and designing communications that resonate with each patient’s lived experience.

 

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UPL Guidance Document

The UPL Guidance Document provides detailed guidance on how to apply the UPL best practices.

Below is a sample of detailed guidance related to Be Culturally Responsible:

  1. Be mindful of inadvertently using words or phrases that might be off-putting or offensive to different cultural groups.
    e.g., Avoid using sets of four when designing for those with Chinese or Japanese cultural backgrounds as this can be associated with death to them.
  2. Patients from different cultural backgrounds may have different expectations around who is involved in medical decision-making. Be sensitive to the possibility of differences and don’t make assumptions.
  3. Be mindful of how a color’s meaning may vary between different cultural groups.
    e.g., In some Eastern cultures, red might represent good luck and prosperity, while in the West it can sometimes symbolize polarizing concepts of competition, vigor, and excitement, or aggression, warning, and danger.
  1. Identify the audiences and communities the communication is intended to reach before creating the original version.​
  2. Plan for cultural adaptation from the start to reduce the need for significant revisions later. Before developing the original version, consider how the content may need to be translated or culturally adapted.
  3. Invite members of the intended community into the development process early. Ask what they need, how they prefer to receive information, and what should be considered before the communication is created.​
  4. Choose words, examples, images, and references that are inclusive, relevant, and respectful of different cultures, languages, beliefs,​ and lived experiences so the content can be adapted without losing meaning or intent.​
  5. Inform writers, designers, and reviewers from the outset that the communication will be adapted so they can make decisions that support adaptation from the first draft.​

 

  1. Acknowledge age, gender, and ethnic diversity when representing people.
  2. Be sensitive to representations of the “average” family structure, body physique, patient profile, and other characterizations.
  3. Include identifiable details and characteristics when they are necessary for supporting the message. Abstract the human figure where gender and ethnicity are not meaningful or significant.

 

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UPL Culture-First Checklist​

Culture can shape how patients and caregivers understand health information and how they make decisions. This easy-to-use checklist contains a list of questions to ask yourself as you create communications for anyone, regardless of cultural background or language spoken.​

Sample from UPL Culture-First Checklist​

 

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UPL Style Guide

The Style Guide offers detailed guidance on how patient and caregiver materials created with UPL should look and feel while also considering accessibility.

Style Guide topic examples related to Be Culturally Responsible include:

Writing

Writing in UPL goes beyond using plain language. Patient communications should be conversational and human. They should be written for the patient, by a real person. Write to educate by being helpful and fostering learning, without coming across as condescending. When you anticipate what patients may be going through, what they may want to learn about, and what phrases they have been using with their physicians, you connect with readers and enable them to quickly see why the materials matter to them.

 

Photography

If using photos, ensure subjects represent a diverse range of people with respect to race, ethnicity, sex, gender, age, and disability. Strive for a range of facial expressions, as some patients may fnd overly positive expressions difcult to relate to.

Sample from UPL Style Guide
Sample from UPL Style Guide
References

© Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
UNIVERSAL PATIENT LANGUAGE® and the UPL Logo are trademarks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
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