Grant: Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) program

Linguistic diversity in Canada is increasing rapidly. According to the 2021 Canadian Census, nearly one third of Canadians live in a minority language community, which means that their mother tongue is not spoken by most residents living in their region. Prior studies have shown that patients who live in minority language communities often experience worse health outcomes compared to patients who speak the majority language. Yet, little attention has been given to the role of patient-physician language concordance (i.e., when patients and physicians share a common language) on long-term health outcomes. Moreover, despite legislation mandating the use of professional interpretation services to help reduce disparities in health outcomes, these services remain underutilized in the Canadian healthcare system due to factors such as limited availability, accessibility, and cost. Our retrospective cohort study will draw on data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), a national survey that collects data from a representative sample of Canadians and which has been linked to administrative health data, to determine whether (and why) Canadians living in minority language communities experience better long-term outcomes when they receive care in their primary language. We will also conduct a systematic review and a qualitative study to explore patient and healthcare provider attitudes and perceptions towards artificial intelligence-based applications for bedside translation in clinical settings. The findings from the quantitative study will inform ongoing efforts to: 1) build a more linguistically diverse medical workforce, and 2) systematically collect information on patients' preferred languages and healthcare providers' language proficiency. The finding from the systematic review and qualitative study will lay the groundwork for future interventional clinical trials evaluating artificial intelligence-based applications for bedside translation.