Table 2.

Example quotes for thematic domains 1 and 2.

Theme 1: Cultural brokers are trusted intermediaries due to their embeddedness in communities and shared migration experience
Thematic domain	Example quotes
Shared experience	Because we had been for eight years a refugee, we know when people are in need. We know how to go to the different country that you don’t speak that language. We share our experiences, we are laughing, we are happy, we are from the same community, we are seeing ourself that, we are growing. We have our own plans. We put our money together and we say, ‘Oh now we are here’. Most of the women are driving cars. We want to be like them, we want to drive cars. Because when we were coming, we had our dream. Yeah we are dreaming.
Family-like relationships	We become like family with our clients somehow. We become close to them. We do what we can to not be too close to not to be overwhelmed by their problems, because if you are too close, all their problems come on you. So we can burnout easily. But that close to us, I think, this thing is particular to multicultural broker’s job.
Trust Dedication to build long-term trust relationships	Ït’s good because I am brand new and I am an immigrant and so I kind of….and I trusted the Broker of course. I know her from my community and I would be willing to do anything because I am brand new, I don’t know the people. If one of your community members asks you and there is a trust relationship, you just go ahead and do what they say It takes a long time to build relationships with them. An example that I have is that one client I met she used to speak very little. Like she wouldn’t talk to me much. Three years later—so I’m talking about three years, third child [laughs]), she’s able to actually hold a conversation with me for more than 15 minutes.

Theme 2: Cultural brokers develop a holistic, contextual knowledge of their clients’ story
Thematic domain	Example quotes
Contextual knowledge facilitates assessment and understanding of complex root causes and social determinants of health	Especially for those who come from refugee camp, they’ve been through a lot(…)of stress and unexpected pregnancy and it’s always like the iron problem is there because again, the eating factor or in a refugee camp, they don’t have enough.(…)Stress and trauma. Stress and trauma is the major one with us, and that is the major cause for diabetes. Cause the food and the lifestyle is not really the contributor, it’s more the trauma and the stress.
Recognising when people are in ‘survival mode’	You see, their priority is to survive. Their priority is to pay bills. And their priority is to send money back home. It is not taking care of … calories in and calories out, right? I have seen many of the challenges that an immigrant family can face from coming to Canada and not knowing anybody, not being able to speak the language, husband working crazy amount of hours to support the whole family, wife getting pregnant, having children and not being able to even attend medical appointments because if husband doesn’t go to work for a day, that’s a big deal. And money—money is a big issue.
Contextualising health behaviours in cultural practices	The food they are eating is not something acceptable our health because we were eating back home, sugar, oily fried things but you were sweating, you were hot.(…)your daily life you were exercising but here, you don’t go outside and you don’t do exercise, you are not getting healthy because what you are eating and what you are doing, is really different, totally different I come from a very obese family myself like when—where being obese was a sign of wealth. A sign of, you know, not just wealth, a sign of superiority, I would say. The bigger you are that means you are bigger, you’re more—big equals big, right?
Drastic change in opportunities for physical activity	Even in the summertime they walk but it is not too much. When we go to shopping, we just take what we want and we go back. On the contrary, back home when you go to the market, you can spend three hours in the market. You don’t know that you are (walking) for 10 kilometers or more. Because everything is everywhere then you have to walk to find the good, the better ones. We have to walk a lot.
Socioeconomic insecurity and eating practices	Challenges? The business of life. (Parents) would be working two jobs. Parents would be coming in, the other parents coming out and they haven’t seen their child’s day, child’s pattern of eating and stuff like that. They would come in and say, ‘eat, eat, eat.’(…)‘Oh did you eat?’ because I am so guilty. ‘Did you eat?’ ‘Ya, mom ya.’ ‘Oh there is something in there. Do you want to eat?’ ‘Mom, I’m not hungry’. ‘Oh you should eat’!