Research Network, Language Data and Resources for studying the health of Francophones in minority situation

Abstract

This project aligns with the Official Languages Health Program goal of ‘developing innovative projects to better address health needs. By producing a detailed directory of all health databases in Canada and the linguistic variables they contain, we are providing researchers in the minority-language space with a powerful, open-access tool to support further research that will benefit official-language minorities.

Background and Objectives

Language barriers in healthcare settings can impede patient access to healthcare services, increase risks to patient safety, and decrease quality of care. Patient-provider language concordance may therefore be an important sociodemographic factor impacting health outcomes, particularly among minority Francophones and Allophones in Canada. However, the collection of language variables and their availability in health administrative data is limited, hindering research assessing language concordance as a determinant of health. The objective of this study is to build and validate a reference tool on linguistic information in health-administrative databases, with the aim of fostering collaboration in research that will improve the health services offered to official language minority communities (OLMCs).

Methods

We are creating a Canadian network of researchers, collaborators and users interested in research on the linguistic component of health services. The network will work on three specific objectives: (1) Review and update information on the availability of language variables in databases; (2) Determine the linguistic representation captured by the various variables and assess their reliability in identifying OLMCs; (3) Produce recommendations and resources to facilitate access to language data and the use of linguistic concepts and variables that promote research on the health of OLMCs.

Results

The project started at the end of 2022. To date, it has brought together a network of researchers and users. The research team is currently investigating the best way to construct a database of linguistic variables with associated metadata.

Conclusions/Implications

This presentation will give an overview of the project plan and describe the key milestones and deliverables, including what the access to language variables and metadata should look like. It is worth noting that this work should also benefit other minority communities, including migrant populations, as it will help researchers identify where language data is captured, including non-official languages.