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Background: Due to the diversity and range of services provided to humanitarian migrants during the settlement phase of migration, acquiring information across multiple service domains is intrinsic to the effective utilisation of settlement services. There are research gaps investigating how humanitarian migrants experience and navigate unfamiliar, multiple, and often complex information and service systems of host countries. This study seeks to understand the impediments to humanitarian migrants' effective utilisation of information about settlement services and to identify strategies that can be implemented to overcome these barriers. Methods: Service providers were purposively recruited from organisations funded by the Australian Government to deliver settlement programs. The study applied an inductive thematic analysis approach to identify key themes that emerged from the data. Results: From the perspective of service providers, the themed findings identified how humanitarian migrants gain knowledge about services, their information needs, information seeking practices and skills, and information specific to service domains. The findings illustrate the importance of acquiring information, knowledge, and skills across multiple information platforms and service domains as being integral to the effective utilisation of settlement services for humanitarian migrants. The study identifies systemic barriers to information and service access and suggests different strategies and approaches to improve access to context specific key information. The study identifies factors that inhibit the effectiveness of the Australian settlement service provision model and emphasises the need for targeted training of mainstream referral services. The study highlights the important role that settlement service providers play as mediators of information, adept at tailoring information to humanitarian migrants' individual and community information needs. Conclusion: The findings provide important insights that highlight the different roles that policymakers, researchers, and service providers can play to inform new approaches that improve the effectiveness of information and settlement service provision, as part of contributing to optimum settlement outcomes for humanitarian migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Effective migration often requires supports for new arrivals, referred to as settlement services. Settlement services literacy (SSL) is key to ensuring new migrants have the capability to access and utilise the information and services designed to support the resettlement process and achieve positive settlement outcomes. To date, however, no research has sought to empirically validate measures of SSL or to assess individual migrants' levels of SSL. The aim of this study was to establish the psychometric properties of constructs from the conceptual SSL framework. Design: Using a snowball sampling approach, trained multilingual research assistants collected data on 653 participants. The total sample was randomly divided into two split-half samples: one for the exploratory factor analysis (EFA; N = 324) and the other for the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; N = 329) and scale validation. The final SSL scale included 30 questions. The full data set was used to test the nomological validity of the scale regarding whether the components of SSL impact on migrants' level of acculturative stress. Results: The EFA yielded five factors: knowledge (eight items, α = 0.88), empowerment (five items, α = 0.89), competence (four items, α = 0.86), community influence (four items, α = 0.82), and political (two items, α = 0.81). In the CFA, the initial model demonstrated a poor to marginal fit model. Its re-specification by examining modification indices resulted in a good model fit: CMIN/DF = 3.07, comparative fit index = 0.92, root mean square error of approximation = 0.08 and standardised root mean square residual = 0.07, which are consistent with recommendations. All the path coefficients between the second-order construct (SSL) and its five dimensions (knowledge, empowerment, competence, community influence and political) were significant at an α =.05 level, giving evidence for the validity of different SSL dimensions. We found that SSL is significantly related to migrants' acculturative stress (β = - 0.39, p < 0.05) in the nomological model. Conclusions: The study provides evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the SSL tool. It provides the basis for integrating the measures of SSL into evaluation of settlement services. This will allow for more effective decision-making in designing and implementing settlement services as well as funding and service agreements to address any deficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that African migrants are often positively predisposed towards blood donation, but are under-represented in participation. A culturally-tailored intervention targeting the African migrant community in Australia was developed and implemented, to enhance knowledge about blood donation, improve attitudes towards donating, increase intentions to donate blood, and increase the number of new African donors in Australia. Four weeks after a targeted campaign, a survey evaluation process commenced, administered face-to-face by bilingual interviewers from the African community in Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia (community survey). The questionnaires covered demographics, campaign awareness, blood donation knowledge and intentions, medical mistrust and perceived discrimination, and were analysed to evaluate changes in knowledge and intention. Sixty-two percent of survey participants (n = 454) reported being aware of the campaign. With increasing campaign awareness, there was a 0.28 increase in knowledge score (p = .005); previous blood donation was also associated with an increased blood donation knowledge score. Blood donation intention scores were not associated with campaign awareness (p = 0.272), but were associated with previous blood donation behaviour and a positive blood donation attitude score. More positive scores on the blood donation attitude measure were associated with increasing blood donation intentions, self-efficacy and campaign awareness (score increases of 0.27, 0.30 and 0.04, respectively, all p<0.05). Data were collected on the ethnicity of new blood donors in six blood collection centres before and after the intervention, and independent of the intervention evaluation survey. These data were also used to assess behavioural changes and the proportions of donors from different countries before and after the survey. There was no difference in the number of new African migrant donors, before and after the intervention. The culturally-relevant marketing campaign was associated with improved blood donation knowledge and attitudes, but there was no short-term change in blood donation intentions or the number of African donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]