RAPID Collaborative: Relevance of linguistic and cross-cultural appropriateness in communication during the pandemic

有效应对新冠肺炎疫情取决于语言和文化因素以及社会和经济因素。对于土著和移民社区来说，这是一个特别令人关切的问题，对他们来说，有关大流行和重要卫生行动的信息可能与他们的语言或卫生做法不符。鉴于这一流行病的危险和适当信息共享的重要性，该项目旨在回答一个重要问题：在刚刚出现的多种语言和多元文化的背景下，可以做些什么来增进理解？该项目分为三个阶段。阶段1考察了掌握主要语言水平较低的双语者如何解读与新冠肺炎相关的医疗信息，以及他们的解读是否依赖于语言熟练程度和文化框架。将进行电话/Skype访谈，讨论与新冠肺炎相关的目标概念/词汇。PIS将评估非主要语言和文化社区的成员在多大程度上在理解健康信息方面表现出劣势，因此更容易受到健康危机的影响。采访将被录音、转录和翻译。在第2-3阶段，公益机构将制定和部署一套程序，介绍与新冠肺炎和其他潜在健康危机相关的必要概念，这些概念不仅在语言上有区别，而且在文化上适合接受调查的人群，而且适合在多语言/多文化背景下普遍使用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic depends on linguistic and cultural factors as well as social and economic ones. This is a special concern for indigenous and immigrant communities for whom information about the pandemic and important health actions may not match their language or health practices. Given the dangers of the pandemic and the importance of appropriate information sharing, the project aims to answer an overarching question: What can be done to increase understanding in a context of incipient multilingualism and multiculturalism? The project has three stages. Stage 1 examines how bilingual individuals with low levels of proficiency in the dominant language interpret healthcare messages related to COVID-19, and whether their interpretation is dependent on language proficiency and cultural framing. Phone/Skype interviews will be conducted in which target concepts/vocabulary associated with COVID-19 will be discussed. The PIs will assess the extent to which members of non-dominant linguistic and cultural communities display a disadvantage in understanding health messages and, therefore, will be more vulnerable to health crises. The interviews will be recorded, transcribed, and translated. At Stages 2-3, the PIs will develop and field a procedure for presenting the necessary concepts related to the COVID-19 and other potential health crises which are linguistically differentiated and culturally appropriate not only for the population under investigation but for general use in a multilingual/multicultural context.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.