Making COVID-testing and results accessible in 22 languages
In August of 2021, our language teams at Respond began working with Primary.Health, a software and tech management organization facilitating COVID testing, vaccination, and state reporting across the country.
Primary.Health focuses on eliminating long-standing health and social inequities and disparities by empowering inclusivity and illuminating social determinants of health. One way that Primary is prioritizing access and inclusivity is through language access: partnering with Respond has led to their portal being accessible in 22 languages at a 3rd grade reading level.
Respond’s teams, led by project manager Valentina Callari Lewis, have translated over 3000 words for Primary’s COVID-testing database portal into Lao, Burmese, Nepali, Urdu, Hmong, Armenian, Karen, Korean, Oromo, Amharic, Farsi, Somali, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, French, and Arabic. Over 30 translators have worked on this project, which has allowed us to create income for financially vulnerable translators and interpreters.
What is more, many who worked on this project have decided to donate their compensation back to Respond, thus allowing us to continue paying our translators and interpreters who need to be economically compensated for their services in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.
We want to thank Primary.Health for their trust in us. We are also grateful to our always amazing translators for working on this big project! We are looking forward to more complex and rewarding projects in the future!
