Student is Translating COVID-19 Information

Moved by the COVID-19 outbreak, Pooja Chandrashekar spoke to mobile health clinic workers across Boston about their needs during the pandemic and discovered that most information about the widespread virus was only available in English and a few other languages, leaving those who do not speak those languages in the dark. According to Chandrashekar, “This makes it very difficult for immigrant and non-English-speaking communities to seek care for COVID-19.” 

According to U.S. News, roughly 25 million people in the U.S. speak no or limited English, and language access has been a long-simmering problem in the public health field. The coronavirus pandemic is intensifying language access issues in health care – problems that could be putting both patients and interpreters, as well as the broader public at risk. 

According to Public School Educator Melissa Hollis, M.S. in English to Speakers of Other Languages, “It would be extremely helpful to have COVID information more readily available to our non-English speakers. In all my interactions with families, they all want to know what the ‘right’ thing to do is and keep their families safe. This information needs to not only be translated but distributed in formats that all can access. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention information that is translated is not reaching countless families because many have no internet access.”

Chandrashekar created the Covid-19 Health Literacy Project containing physician-reviewed fact sheets about Covid-19 in languages not commonly represented in the American health care system. Together with students from more than 30 universities, she has created seven fact sheets, in 35 languages.