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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Gabrielena Alcala-Levy, MA and Sally Crelia, MPH. Health Services Research & Managenment Group, BearingPoint, 99 High Street, Boston, MA 02110, 617-378-3608, gaby.alcala@bearingpoint.com

Language is a significant barrier for many Hispanics in finding, accessing, and understanding important health information. Many Web sites that provide high quality information on health issues do so in English and thus are not useful to an important percentage of Hispanics. Accessible and user-friendly health information on the Internet is important for Spanish speakers. The proposed presentation will summarize the main research findings and lessons learned from two research projects conducted by BearingPoint for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The main objectives of these projects were: (i) to assess the quality of users' experiences when interacting with two different websites developed by these institutions, (ii) to recommend changes to help users utilize the sites more efficiently and achieve a high level of user satisfaction, (3) to ensure that the sites were culturally appropriate for the Spanish-speaking population.

The BearingPoint team conducted interviews with a diverse sample of Spanish-speaking consumers based in the U.S. The team conducted hands-on usability testing and one-on-one interviews. The hands-on usability provided information on whether participants were able to navigate easily through the site, where they encountered challenges or difficulty, and helped to determine overall user's satisfaction. The one-on-one interviews provided information on users' overall comprehension of the content of the Web sites. The main findings include: (i) Hispanics would like to be able to find more online health information in Spanish, and (ii) the information provided needs to be targeted to them and not simply a translation from English to Spanish.

Learning Objectives:

• Purpose and techniques for conducting Usability testing.
• Identify the importance of providing reliable and understandable health information in Spanish and how to effectively display that information on Web sites.

Keywords: Hispanic, Internet Tools

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No