A University of Saskatchewan researcher is bringing to light the disorder and confusion that went on in immigrant households during the covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of information in languages other than English and French. USask researcher and project lead Dr. Veronika Makarova says at a time as uncertain and scary as the pandemic, being unable to understand the government announcements, health advice, and emergency updates is an unnecessary obstacle that needs to be resolved for the future.

The idea for her research came from when she realized how hard it was to find information on the illness and vaccine availability in her native language, as opposed to English. She says when internet searches are made in languages other than English, very few if not zero results come up. She questioned if she was missing out on vital information because of the language barrier, and it lead her to conduct her own research.

Through surveys and interviews, she determined that after 2019, immigrants found trouble with the stress of worrying about loved ones overseas, shifting to an online environment which operated almost entirely in English, school-aged children keeping up with homework in a language they aren’t fluent in, and maintaining bilingualism due to a lack of community events.

Makarova says her next steps include making the public, governments, research groups, and health authorities aware of the language needs of immigrants, and hopefully create a resource to translate emergency information into multiple different languages.

(picture credit: USask Twitter)