Language Access Instruction Outside of Formal Curricula: Insights for Health Promotion and Health Profession Training Programs

Abstract

There is a need for expanded language services in U.S. healthcare and public health systems, and preparing health providers and health educators to work with interpreters is one approach to this end. In this paper, we examine experiences of pre-health and health professions students, health promotion students, and practitioners in an independent online language interpretation training. A state-funded workforce development program provided a 40-hr online medical interpretation training to 80 participants during the 2022–23 academic year. At the close of the program, 17 individuals participated in qualitative interviews regarding their expectations for the training, perceptions of training material and delivery, barriers to participation, personal and professional impact, and reflections on their experiences. Authors coded the interviews through an iterative process and developed matrices to represent the salient themes discovered within the transcript data. Participants were mostly Latina/Hispanic women who were pre-health professions or public health undergraduate students. Participants elected to register for the training, in many cases, because of personal experience with the challenges posed by a language-inaccessible healthcare system. They valued the materials provided and the practical lessons that reinforced the information presented in lectures. Participants’ main feedback was to alter the schedule to be less intensive. There is an existing interest among future providers and educators to be ready to serve patients regardless of the patient’s primary language, but relevant programming is not always accessible to students or professionals. Curriculum developers should consider this demand and the limitations of using an extracurricular interpretation training when developing language access experiences for students.