Photo caption: CDHAM created a pilot program to expose USU students to a stability operations scenario as part of a larger program, the Defense Medical Language Initiative (DMLI), to develop language and culture training for Department of Defense health personnel. Members of the CDHAM team provided an incredible degree of authenticity and realism for the students. (Photo by CDHAM volunteer and UMBC student, Faisal Mahmood, for the USU Newsletter The Pulse, August 15, 2011)
Background Information on DMLI
The Department of Defense and other US Government entities such as USAID and HHS are routinely engaged in a broad spectrum of health-related efforts abroad, including humanitarian assistance/disaster response (HA/DR), medical stability operations (MSOs), host-nation health-sector development, and counter-insurgency (COIN) support through direct provision of health services to host-nation populations. In these operations, health-related host-nation language skills and awareness of cultural factors such as pre-conflict or pre–disaster healthcare baselines, religious or cultural beliefs about disease etiology, local attitudes toward gender- and age-related health issues, and attitudes towards the US and Western culture in general can enhance the effectiveness of health outreach activities. Failure to understand these issues may not only inhibit the effectiveness of the activities but can cause these efforts to have unintended negative outcomes and damaging effects on US interests.
The intention of this program is not to enhance language-education curricula in general, which are already well-developed and supported within DoD, but to enhance the DoD’s health-education curricula by identifying and developing mission-critical language and cultural skills for health providers. This also will be of potential use to any USG agencies involved in health-sector development and humanitarian assistance.
The goals of this initiative will be:
1. Develop guidelines for Military Health Service activities that can be supported by intensive health-specific language and cultural training
2. Develop appropriate language-education curricula based on desired health outcomes
3. Implement those curricula in pilot programs
4. Analyze the effectiveness of the pilot programs from a health-outcomes perspective
