Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Oct 25, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 25, 2023 - Dec 20, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 14, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Bridging Language Barriers in COVID-19 Research: A Descriptive Study of AccesoCovid.com's Reach and User Engagement
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the challenge of swiftly disseminating research findings to a global audience. Language barriers further exacerbated disparities in access to timely scientific information, particularly for non-English speaking communities.
Objective:
This paper aims to assess the impact and significance of AccesoCovid.com, a platform that disseminated up-to-date COVID-19 research in both English and Spanish, addressing the language gap in scientific communication.
Methods:
AccesoCovid.com was developed through a partnership between the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). The website's performance and user engagement were evaluated using Google Analytics, capturing metrics such as user language preference, geographical distribution, and site traffic over a span of two years.
Results:
From February 2021 to February 2023, the platform attracted 57,000 users, 84% of whom hailed from Spanish-speaking regions. The majority accessed the site organically through search engines. The website summarized and translated 1,032 articles, with "Pharmaceutical Interventions and Vaccines" being the most accessed category.
Conclusions:
AccesoCovid.com successfully bridged a critical language gap in the dissemination of COVID-19 research. Its success indicates a pressing need for multilingual scientific resources, emphasizing the potential for such platforms to ensure equitable access to scientific knowledge across diverse linguistic communities.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.