An examination of translated content on NCI-designated cancer websites with a focus on breast and colorectal cancer.

Abstract

6576 Background: One unforeseen implication of the pandemic has been a greater reliance on health information sharing via the Internet. This is complicated by the fact that many healthcare websites and online resources fail to consider Limited English Proficiency (LEP) when designing websites that relay essential health information. We aimed to quantify the extent to which NCI-Designated Cancer Center websites provide language accessibility. Methods: Over the course of 2021, we performed a cross-sectional review of translation services and available languages on NCI-Designated Cancer Center websites. This study was particularly focused on both breast cancer and colorectal cancer portions of these websites. The primary out-comes were as follows: option of translated content, presence of more than one language, and method by which the translation was performed (written text vs. Google scholar). We referred to the 2015 US language map for the percentage of LEP by state. Results: Of the 71 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers, 56 (78.9%) were without translation, and 15 (21.1%) used either manual translation or displayed a link for Google translate. Of the 15 centers who offered translated content on their website, 15/15 (100%) had more than one language available in the drop down list. Spanish (100%) was the most common language available. In terms of Limited English Proficiency, 25 of 71 (35.21%) NCI-Designated Cancer Centers were located in states where greater than 10% of the population is defined as having LEP, and yet, only 5 of these centers (20.0%) had languages other than English featured. We observed no significant relationship between the state LEP percentile and the number of NCI-Designated Cancer Centers offering website translation services within that state. Additionally, no appreciable differences in language availability were observed between breast cancer and colorectal cancer. Conclusions: Overall, only a fraction of NCI-Designated Cancer Centers actually translate the content of their websites. In New York for example, despite having the highest percentage of residents with LEP at 19.345%, only one of ten NCI-Designated Cancer Centers within the state had a website with language translation. We believe this represents a missed opportunity as language inaccessibility may contribute to delays in care for non-English speaking patients, particularly in a post pandemic world, further exacerbating health care disparities among patient populations.