I do not agree that translation agencies and ATA protocols are the best way to translate.  To my knowledge ATA has not publically supported rigorous methods published in the health services research literature (forward and backtranslation, item rating, committee review) that is used at the Drew University Center for Cross Cultural Epidemiologic studies.  ATA also has not recommended the linguistic simplification of documents before translation (to my knowledge).  Agencies just translate they do not linguistically and culturally adapt.  If you want a back translation they'll charge for that.  When I asked one agency in CA who would back translate a document she told me it would be the person who translated it!  There is no quality control and this is contrary to state of the art language translation where the back translation should be done by an independent translator.  Also, ATA's benchmark for Spanish is the castellano.  I don't know many Latinos in
 the US, including immigrants, who use castellano form of the language.  It is not appropriate for most Spanish speakers here.    
 
José Luis Calderón, MD


Research Associate Professor
College of Pharmacy, Health Professions Division
Nova Southeastern University

Ft. Lauderdale, FL  
3301 College Ave
Fort Lauderdale-Davie 33314
(O) 954-262-1295 
(F) 954-262-2278
 
Research Associate Professor
Center for Health Services Research
The Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science
2594 Lynwood Ave
Lynwood, CA 90262





 



----- Original Message ----
From: "AboutDiabetes at aol.com" <AboutDiabetes at aol.com>
To: healthliteracy at nifl.gov
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 9:24:37 AM
Subject: [HealthLiteracy 1765] Re: National translation standards?


Hello Janet:
 
I've been following with interest the many excellent comments you've received in reply to your question about national translation standards.
 
The recent note by Aracely Rosales, whose services I have employed, and recommend, for Spanish-language programs, provides an excellent summary of the many factors to consider when developing materials in another language.
 
In addition to what you have learned, some comments on using vendors to develop projects may be helpful. Based on my experiences in one of my prior lives as founder and President of Transcultural Communications, a health care advertising agency specializing in primarily Spanish-language health care communications, I'd suggest you also consider the following:
 
1) Always check a vendors references with at least two clients. 
 
2) Ensure the vendor uses American Translation Association (ATA) certified translators and insist on being given a copy of their credentials (which you can then verify are current on the ATA Web site).
 
3) For medical/legal reasons, we insisted all projects have at least one ATA-certified translator involved in creating the master translation. Proofreaders and others working on a project may have had other credentials, such as Certified Court Translator in Spanish to English or English to Spanish, but in the end all projects were certified in writing as medically accurate and culturally sensitive by an ATA translator. 
 
4) All "adapted" English to Spanish projects, which is the majority of projects, were always field tested with patients representative of the major Hispanic sub-groups in America (Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban). 
 
5) As for translators, you would be incorrect (as I was) if you assumed that we would automatically insist on using an ATA-certified translator of Mexican American descent to lead all projects. Although Mexicans and Mexican Americans constitute the vast majority of Hispanics living in the continental US, and sensitivity to the Mexican idiom is essential for any good translation, as in any other field, not all translators are the same. After much trial and error, we finally selected a chief translator from Puerto Rico, whom I still have the pleasure of working with in my charity work.  
 
If you need Spanish-language translation work of any kind, I would highly recommend you contact Ms. Eva Ibarzabel in Puerto Rico at ibarzabal_eva at yahoo.com . 
 
As a final comment, please keep the word "adapted" in mind as you try to respond to the occasional demand that a word or phrase be changed in a Spanish-language project (and many other languages). Because of regional variations in word-usage, non-translators often request changes in a document. Often, the more educated (in general) the person is, the more demanding they can be about change requests.  Unless two translators agree that a proposed change in a translated document "improves" the intended message, leave it alone!  Even with these precautionary steps, expect not to be loved at times after all your hard work. 
 
Best of luck.
 
Paul Tracey
Learning About Diabetes, Inc.
www.learningaboutdiabetes.org  
 






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