[Nesabes] FW: [CBPR] Translating materials into Spanish

[Bower, Carol]

FYI--

Carol Bower
System for Adult Basic Education Support
For further information please go to http://www.sabes.org and to
register for NE SABES events, please go to
http://calendar.sabes.org/northeast.

-----Original Message-----
From: Hoffman, Emily [mailto:ehoffman at glcac.org] 
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 8:15 AM

For those who have raised the translation issues within the health care
system, this site may provide you with some insightful information.
Emily



-----Original Message-----
From: Milagro Grullon [mailto:MilagroGrullon at CITYOFLAWRENCE.COM] 
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 2:42 PM
Subject: [CBPR] Translating materials into Spanish 


Dear CBPR colleagues,

Given all the interest in having CBPR principles and articles in
Spanish, 
this resource from the national program Hablamos Juntos may be of 
interest as well.  Hablamos Juntos (Spanish for We Speak Together) is a 
project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and administered by

UCSF Fresno, Center for Medical Education & Research, to develop 
affordable models for language access. The ten demonstration sites
funded 
under Hablamos Juntos included health plans, hospital systems, nonprofit

community organizations and educational institutions. To learn more 
visit: http://www.hablamosjuntos.org

The report Developing Better Non-English Materials: Understanding the
Limits of 
Translation, shares lessons learned regarding barriers faced by health
care 
organizations in producing useful translated text and in evaluating
those 
products for quality.  The report is available at:
http://www.hablamosjuntos.org/resource_guide_portal/pdf/Brief-NonEngl-Fi
nal.pdf

Clear communication between patients and their doctors is essential in
order 
for patients to receive safe, high quality health care. Written health 
materials are an important means of communication and federal laws
require 
health care organizations to translate "vital" documents for patients
with 
limited English proficiency (LEP). Why is production of non-English
materials 
(those written in languages other than English) a struggle for health
care 
organizations? How can health organizations improve the quality of
materials 
for their non-English speaking patients?

Developing Better Non-English Materials describes the experience and
challenges 
encountered by the Hablamos Juntos demonstrations and offers new insight
and 
perspectives on questions, such as these:

a.. Why translating English original documents into other languages is a

challenge for healthcare organizations;

b.. What Hablamos Juntos learned from studying patterns of errors in 
translations and why these errors may occur;

c.. Why differences in languages, and culturally determined
communication 
styles and forms of expression place insurmountable limits to the
process of 
translation;

d.. What health care organizations can do to help translators make more 
effective translation decisions and produce useful non-English
materials; and

e.. Why paying attention to the function or the purpose of text can help

improve the quality of written health care information.

Overall, Hablamos Juntos found health care organizations have broad 
misconceptions about the translation process. Read Developing Better 
Non-English Materials to learn how a lack of training opportunities for 
translators along with a lack of effective methods to evaluate
translated text 
have contributed to an extraordinary number of poorly translated text
now in 
circulation in health organizations. Further, misguided standards - such
as 
using "back-to-English" translation to check quality - may actually
contribute 
to poor translation. This is why Hablamos Juntos has continued to work
with 
linguists, translators and researchers to develop practical tools to
help 
health organizations develop useful non-English materials. In the coming

months, they will debut a series of tools designed to help evaluate
whether 
materials should be translated or not, how to work more effectively with

translators to produce more useful text, and how to assess the quality
of 
translated materials.

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