The Art of Culturally Appropriate Translation during a Global Pandemic

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health (LAC-DPH) has mastered the art of a culturally appropriate translation process to support the COVID19 pandemic response. LAC-DPH decreased the turnaround time of translations from 21 days to 24 hours, with a robust quality control process that ensures that the translation is accurate and culturally appropriate. The documents are utilized in departmental websites and social media postings, and as flyers, posters, employee scripts, informational postcards, and other types of written communication processes. Through determination and strong coordination with internal partners, external stakeholders, and vendors, LAC-DPH has processed over 9,000 translated documents in 12 threshold languages during the past 12 months with no complaints of inaccuracy or culturally inappropriate translations.