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Interpreter assemblages: Caring for immigrant and refugee patients in US hospitals
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Interpreter assemblages: Caring for immigrant and refugee patients in US hospitals

Susan E. Bell
Social science & medicine (1982), v 226, pp 29-36
01 Apr 2019
PMID: 30831557

Abstract

Biomedical Social Sciences Life Sciences & Biomedicine Public, Environmental & Occupational Health Science & Technology Social Sciences, Biomedical Social Sciences
US hospitals have developed a variety of strategies to meet federal requirements and provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health care for people who report limited English proficiency. A key strategy is the use of healthcare interpreters who may be physically present in the room or in the room via telephone or video conference. This paper analyzes the contingent and unstable combinations of heterogeneous human and non-human elements that form and disperse during visits to the hospital when healthcare interpreters are used. It draws its analysis from 9 months of fieldwork in 2012 that included following 69 adult immigrant and refugee patients in one hospital in Maine and observing encounters with interpreters and clinic staff. It introduces the concept of interpreter assemblage to make sense of the transnational mixes of people, technologies, and ideas that bring multilingual hospital care to life and give it a character of its own.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#10 Reduced Inequalities
#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Web of Science research areas
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Social Sciences, Biomedical
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