MedlinePlus Tutorial 7: How to View MedlinePlus Information in Multiple Languages

Welcome to the video tutorial "How to View MedlinePlus Information in Multiple Languages." This video is for you, the Community Health Worker. It shares about a great, reliable website where you can find health information in different languages. When you use this one website, you can be confident that you are sharing health information that is accurate and reliable. They have already done the research for you, and gathered the information you need. MedlinePlus is that website, and it is available in English and Spanish, and also offers a limited number of items in other languages. For MedlinePlus in Spanish, click on "Español." You can find this in the upper right section of the home webpage. Not all the information in English is available in Spanish, but a good amount of information is available in Spanish. To view information in other languages, scroll down the home webpage and you'll see the link to Health Information in Multiple Languages.This link is mainly for English speakers to find reliable information in various languages. Here's how you can use this link. First you can see an alphabetical list of languages. For example, I'll scroll down to Somali. When you click on Somali, it will take you to a page with health conditions listed alphabetically in English, that are in the Somali language. Let's scroll down to the health topic called "Asthma in Children." Listed there is a link to information about nebulizer treatments. You will see the words "Bilingual PDF" which means that the document will include information in both Somali and Engllish. Having a bilingual document allows your client to share it with their doctor, so the doctor can see what the patient is reading.
If you prefer you can start by first looking at the list of health topics and then seeing if it is available in the language you are looking for. To see what health topics are available in different languages, click on "Health Topics," which is located under the title "Health Information in Multiple Languages." Click on that and you will see the list of health topics listed alphabetically in English. Let's say you are looking for information about asthma regarding a child. You will see the topic of Asthma in Children listed. Click on that and you will see the languages that the information on Asthma in Children is available in. You will see what specific information on Asthma is available. Here you can see information about nebulizer treatments is available in a few languages. A little more information about asthma in children is available in Spanish. To view the document about nebulizer treatments in Somali, click on the Somali language document. You will see the English text is on the left, and the Somali language text is on the right side of the document.This is the same document we saw when we first looked for information about asthma in children, but searching by language. At the bottom of each document, it will also tell you where the information is from. This example says it is from "Health Information Translations." You know you can trust the health information on MedlinePlus, so look there first for the health information in the language you need.