Grant: Catalyst Grant: Partnering for Impact - Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research

Nearly one in four Canadians are immigrants, and many face language barriers when seeking healthcare. These barriers can lead to unnecessary tests, missed diagnoses, and bad outcomes. Yet, the voices of children, youth, and families who face language barriers are rarely heard in health research and there is little guidance on how to involve them meaningfully. As a result, existing research may be misaligned with their priorities. Our project will change this by working directly with children, youth, and families who experience language barriers. Using a proven international process, patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers will work together as equal partners to agree on the top priorities for future research into addressing language barriers in healthcare. Importantly, interpretation and translation will be used throughout to ensure that patients and caregivers who experience language barriers can participate at all stages. We will begin with a nation-wide survey, available in the top 10 languages spoken at home in Canada, asking families and healthcare providers about the challenges they face and what questions they think research should answer. After reviewing and summarizing these responses, a second survey will invite participants to rank the most important unanswered questions. Finally, a diverse group of families and healthcare providers will meet in a workshop to agree on the top 10 research priorities to address language barriers in healthcare delivery. The result will be a nationally-generated list of the most urgent research questions about addressing language barriers for children, youth, and families in healthcare. This list will guide researchers, funders, and policymakers to focus future work on what families and their care providers actually need. This project will also demonstrate how to support multilingual, inclusive engagement so families facing language barriers are no longer left out of research and healthcare decisions.