Interpreters' knowledge and perceptions of childhood vaccines: Effect of an educational session

Interpreters improve the care of patients with limited English proficiency. They can potentially act as unofficial health educators to help dispel misunderstandings about medical risks in a culturally appropriate manner. Somali parents in Minnesota are less likely to immunize their children for MMR than other parents because they believe the MMR vaccine causes autism. The low MMR vaccination rate contributed to measles outbreaks in the state in 2011 and 2017.

To investigate the effects of an educational session on interpreter beliefs and knowledge about childhood vaccines.

A large interpreter service in Minneapolis holds quarterly educational sessions for their interpreters. The investigators presented a one-hour interactive session on childhood vaccinations at one of the meetings. The interpreters were surveyed pre- and post-training to assess their (1) beliefs regarding childhood vaccines, (2) knowledge of childhood vaccination indications and safety, and surveyed pre-training about their perceived impact on patient decision-making.

Fifty-five of the 78 interpreters attending the training session completed both the pre- and post-training surveys. Participants made significant improvements in their knowledge of vaccines after the training. Interpreters were less likely to believe that vaccines causes autism after the presentation (p = 0.02), and were more likely to indicate that the current evidence does not support a vaccine - autism connection (p < 0.001). Nineteen percent of the interpreters were from Somalia. Somali interpreters were significantly more likely to expand on what is said by the physician than their non-Somali colleagues (OR = 16.2, 95% CI = 2.8-92.9). They were also significantly more likely to encounter parental worry over vaccine safety (OR = 16.2, 95% CI = 1.9-140.5), and to believe that children get too many vaccines (OR = 30.1, 95% CI = 3.4-271.5).

The training was an effective method to improve interpreters' knowledge and perceptions of vaccine safety. By training Somali interpreters, they can become a part of a team working toward better MMR vaccination rates.