Filling the gap in language access: Voluntary sector translation of public health guidance in England during the Covid-19 pandemic

The right to health is a fundamental human right, making the timely and accurate communication of essential public health information crucial, particularly in emergency situations, and in all necessary languages and formats. Increasingly, such information is translated by unpaid volunteers and/or non-professional translators both in public health and emergencies. This situation came to a head worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic. The inadequate response of the public authorities in the United Kingdom resulted in the voluntary or third sector stepping in to fill the gap. This paper focuses on the unique and sustained work by medical charity Doctors of the World UK (DoTW) and its partners to translate official pandemic health guidance at the national level in England. Using Taibi’s community translation quality assurance model (2018a), the paper examines the strategy adopted by DoTW and analyzes its approach in order to identify good practices for successful public risk communication through translation. In view of the growing use of voluntary sector initiatives in the public sector, it also considers the sustainability of voluntary sector intervention at the national level to fill the gaps in public service translation. A longer abstract of this article in this language can be found here: synopsis.