Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Cochrane activities in non-English speaking countries is limited by the language barrier and usually low in comparison to English-speaking countries. Making Cochrane summaries more accessible by translating them into other languages, is likely to enable wider dissemination of these vital healthcare data. The “Health in Your Language” Project of the Evidence-Based Medicine Unit (EBM) at Unesp started in April 2014 and has since translated Cochrane abstracts and plain language summaries (PLSs) into Portuguese, complementing the translation efforts of the Brazilian Cochrane Centre, and contributing to Cochrane’s translation strategy.
Objectives: The aim of this project is to provide the best evidence for health care in Brazil and in the community of Portuguese-speaking countries by translating Cochrane summaries into Portuguese, and to disseminate those translations to health professionals.
Methods: The EBM Unit is managing the translation process with two coordinators and one director. The bulk of the translations are provided by volunteer health professionals and students who have been recruited within Unesp and through our networks. The volunteers choose reviews in their specialty or main interest area that they would like to translate. The coordinators and director edit the translations to warrant consistency and quality. The translations are published on cochrane.org and the Cochrane Library via Cochrane’s translation and publication systems. We are using workshops and mailing list as a strategy to disseminate the translated abstracts that will be measured by follow-up with the attendees and the collaborators.
Results: With the help of 42 volunteers, so far we have translated and published 117 Cochrane abstracts and PLSs (March 2015). We will present the impact of those translations at the Cochrane Colloquium.
Conclusions: Our project is in its early stages, and we are not able to draw any firm conclusions on the impact of our activities yet. However, we have seen a lot of enthusiasm from our volunteers, and we hope that it will help enhance Cochrane’s mission in Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries.
Objectives: The aim of this project is to provide the best evidence for health care in Brazil and in the community of Portuguese-speaking countries by translating Cochrane summaries into Portuguese, and to disseminate those translations to health professionals.
Methods: The EBM Unit is managing the translation process with two coordinators and one director. The bulk of the translations are provided by volunteer health professionals and students who have been recruited within Unesp and through our networks. The volunteers choose reviews in their specialty or main interest area that they would like to translate. The coordinators and director edit the translations to warrant consistency and quality. The translations are published on cochrane.org and the Cochrane Library via Cochrane’s translation and publication systems. We are using workshops and mailing list as a strategy to disseminate the translated abstracts that will be measured by follow-up with the attendees and the collaborators.
Results: With the help of 42 volunteers, so far we have translated and published 117 Cochrane abstracts and PLSs (March 2015). We will present the impact of those translations at the Cochrane Colloquium.
Conclusions: Our project is in its early stages, and we are not able to draw any firm conclusions on the impact of our activities yet. However, we have seen a lot of enthusiasm from our volunteers, and we hope that it will help enhance Cochrane’s mission in Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries.