12-14 March 2026, Douala, Cameroon
Submission Deadline: 30 November 2025
Contact: Collaborative Research on Africa,
Healthcare delivery in most African countries is done in official languages which for the most part are colonial. Cameroon for example has 283 languages (Eberhard, Simons and Fennig, 2023) with an Official bilingual (English and French) policy which government thrusts ferociously with little or no realistic sociolinguistic foundation. Many other African countries have adopted colonial languages as official languages (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. depending on whom their colonial master is/was, at the detriment of hundreds of local languages which for the most part are not used in life-saving situations like healthcare delivery. This ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse setting spells variations in patients’ varied perspectives, values, and behaviours about health and well-being. Medical personnel are mainly trained in official languages and they are supposed to work with populations which, in the main, do not speak, write or understand these languages. These people have their cultural perceptions and perspectives which may be generally ignored within this multicultural context. Failure to understand and manage social and cultural differences may have significant health consequences for minority groups in particular (Betancourt, 2002). The present conference hopes to bring together researchers, practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders who would come together and share ethnographical data and best practice on language use and communication systems in healthcare delivery and well-being in multicultural contexts.