Evaluating Local Multilingual Health Care Information Environments on the Internet: A Pilot Study

Russell Miller, Nicholas Doria-Anderson, Akira Shibanuma, Jennifer Lisa Sakamoto, Aya Yumino and Masamine Jimba
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Russell Miller: Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Nicholas Doria-Anderson: Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Akira Shibanuma: Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Jennifer Lisa Sakamoto: Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Aya Yumino: Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Masamine Jimba: Department of Community and Global Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-12

Abstract: For foreign-born populations, difficulty in finding health care information in their primary language is a structural barrier to accessing timely health care. While such information may be available at a national level, it may not always be relevant or appropriate to the living situations of these people. Our objective was to explore the quality of online multilingual health information environments by pilot-testing a framework for assessing such information at the prefectural level in Japan. The framework consisted of five health care domains (health system, hospitals, emergency services, medical interpreters, and health insurance). Framework scores varied considerably among prefectures; many resources were machine-translated. These scores were significantly associated with foreign population proportion and the number of hospitals in each prefecture. Our multilingual health care information environment (MHCIE) framework provides a measure of health access inclusivity, which has not been quantified before. It is adaptable to other international contexts, but further validation is required.

Keywords: information dissemination; communication barriers; health resources; Japan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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