Health Information for All: Language Resources

Posted by Sarah Levin-Lederer on February 22nd, 2021 Posted in: Blog, NLM Resources
Tags: health disparities, Health Literacy, MedlinePlus

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According to the US Census Bureau 22% of people in the US 5 years or older speak a language other than English at home and 8.2% speak English “less than very well”. In the Northeast, those percentages are slightly higher than the national average at 23.7% and 9.4% respectively.

But what does that have to do with health? And how can we support these individuals and communities find linguistically appropriate, quality health information?

What does language access have to do with health outcomes and health disparities?

What is Health Literacy? “Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” Healthy People

• How does Health Literacy affect health outcomes and economic impacts? Low health literacy leads to poorer health outcomes and higher healthcare costs.
• How does language access affect Health Literacy? A key part of health literacy is an individual’s ability to understand and process health information. And a language barrier can hinder this understanding.

Learn more about health disparities on MedlinePlus

Find more NLM resources on health disparities and language disparities

How can we support our communities with linguistically appropriate health information?

MedlinePlus has translated health information in a wide array of languages on many of the health topics. There are several ways to find translated health information on MedlinePlus:

• MedlinePlus is available completely in Spanish
• Find a full list of languages with available
• Looking for information in languages other than English and Spanish on a specific health topic? If available, you can find a link to translated health information in a box linked on the right-hand side of the health topics page.

Resources from partners:

• CDC en Español
• CDC Resources in languages other than English-Find translated factsheets, toolkits and more. Search by language or health topic.
• Find immigrant and refugee health information from the CDC
• Find resources and initiatives from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
• Learn more with the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health

Looking to learn more about how you can serve LEP populations?  NNLM has two versions of a training, From Beyond Our Borders: Providing Multilingual and Multicultural Health Information

• One hour, on-demand, CHES CE eligible-This version is available any time.
• MLA four contact hour CE Moodle-Check back for the next instance of this class.