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

有效应对COVID-19疫情取决于语言和文化因素以及社会和经济因素。 这是土著和移民社区特别关注的问题，对他们来说，关于流行病和重要卫生行动的信息可能与他们的语言或卫生习惯不符。鉴于这一流行病的危险性和适当分享信息的重要性，该项目旨在回答一个至关重要的问题：在刚开始使用多种语言和多种文化的背景下，可以做些什么来增进了解？该项目分为三个阶段。第一阶段考察对主要语言熟练程度较低的双语个体如何解读与COVID-19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COVID-19相关的目标概念/词汇。方案执行人将评估非主导语言和文化社区成员在理解健康信息方面表现出的劣势程度，从而更容易受到健康危机的影响。采访将被记录，转录和翻译。在阶段2-3，PI将制定并实施一项程序，用于提出与COVID-19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差异，而且在文化上适合受调查人群，而且在多语言/该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的知识优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.