Building equitable health and social policy in Australia to improve immigrant health literacy

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that many immigrants in Australia are at an increased risk of infection, illness, stress and other issues associated with the virus, due to major barriers in accessing health and wellbeing information, activities and services. Barriers to improved health such as low socioeconomic status, poor working conditions, low health literacy and others are deeply problematic given that a growing body of evidence shows the need to improve the health, social, education and employment outcomes for more people in a culturally and linguistically diverse Australia. In this editorial, we address the impacts on health and wellbeing for immigrants due to COVID-19. We describe how these are rooted in public policy and the complex processes associated with immigration and other social determinants of health. We demonstrate that developing more equitable and inclusive approaches to national policy and research, including more critical and holistic evaluation of health literacy initiatives, can play a vital role in better supporting a culturally and linguistically diverse Australia both now, and in the future...