NTU Global Health Information Hub

On May 15th, 2021, Taiwan CDC announced the Level 3 Epidemic Alert in response to the local community outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Taipei. A group of NTU international students teamed up and launched a project of COVID-19 information translation.
 
According to the statistics by the Ministry of Interior in May 2021, there are approximately 820,000 foreign residents, accounting for about 3.5% of the total population in Taiwan. The team is aware of the importance and the need for those information to reach the minority population, as most of the CDC press releases, real-time alert notifications, and vaccine registration platforms were only available in Mandarin Chinese.  The team believes that health is a human right and removing language barriers is key.  Health-related information, policy announcements, and messages, especially timely COVID-19 prevention measures must readily reach the public via different languages, to contain outbreaks effectively.  Acknowledging and including the broad diversity of residents is crucial in public health prevention measures.

NTU Global Health Information Hub launched in May 2021 with support from the Global Health Program director and faculty. It gathered followers who rely on it as a source for their updated health news in their own mother tongue language. The mobile-ready website became available online in June 2021, delivering the collection of press release summaries and infographics in multiple languages that have been published on social media platforms. The team obtains reliable information from governmental press releases as the source of content, including but not limited to the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), Taiwan Centers for Disease Control(CDC), and Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

While being a vibrant resource for multilingual health information for foreigners in Taiwan, the platforms also make sharing of information easy for anyone on social media. Language-based tabs on the website allow audiences to find infographics and/or articles that interest them, according to their own language preferences. 

Within the first 3 months, NTU Global Health Information Hub has delivered more than 50 pieces of COVID-19 information updates translated into English, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai, and Filipino languages, gained more than 100 organic followers on Facebook, reaching more than 20000 audiences from 12 countries.