I would like to begin by acknowledging the fact that science and public policy are inextricably related, and this is especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, we are very excited to be delving into these intersections through RASIT’s new Science and Society program.
During this pandemic, we are seeing the importance of science communication to build public trust in science, encourage public participation in the scientific process, and to ensure that everyone has up-to-date information on COVID. However, it is important to understand and analyze how the science is being communicated to the public in order to prevent the spread of misleading news, ensure that the information is accessible and clear to all stakeholders, and ensure that communication is happening in a variety of forms and media in order to reach out to everyone.
Today, I would like to focus on the latter two points. A few months ago, I came across a scientific article called “Science Communication in Multiple Languages Is Critical to Its Effectiveness”, written by Ms. Melissa Cristina Marquez and Dr. Ana Maria Porras, two wonderful women in science. In their paper, they talked about the language bias in science today, where many scientific journals are published in English. After reading their paper, I considered - what if I were a scientist who could not speak the English language? How would I be able to understand scientific resources and be able to effectively communicate my findings to other scientists? This also led me to think about COVID and about the global response to the pandemic - if people were unable to understand the contents in English-only journals, then how would scientists be able to collaborate and share findings, and how would citizens who do not understand English be able to understand all of the developments and studies that have been done to address COVID? In response to this, I believe that it is important to encourage scientists to write in their native language and to build robust translation services so scientists from across the world can understand and work with one another. For example, for the Girls in Science 4 SDGs International Platform, Victoria, a member of our team, has translated the platform so it is available in Spanish and our content can be understood by those who speak the language.
Finally, it is valuable to have communication of scientific research in multiple languages as that will also help youth be able to identify role models from their own province, state, or country, and understand that they too can contribute to science in their own language.
Another related issue I wanted to discuss is the fact that communication should not be limited to the languages of the world but also include other forms such as sign language and braille. Last weekend, I participated in a health policy case competition at Duke University, where we examined issues related to vaccine hesitancy. As I was working on the case, I was thinking about the challenges that those disabilities may face. If someone were to have a hearing disability, for instance, they could have trouble understanding and communicating some of their questions and concerns about the COVID vaccine. This also extends to understanding COVID at large. If we are not communicating the facts about COVID, whether that is about the importance of social distancing, the number of cases in a certain area, ways to be safe, and updates about the COVID vaccine effectively for those with disabilities, then that’s a significant part of the population we are not adequately addressing.
A last point I would like to bring up is the fact that while you and I may be able to connect today over Zoom, not everyone around the world has access to a computer or a smartphone, and not everyone has access to a stable internet. In that case, several media forms may not be accessible to them. We need to communicate science beyond online and social media. But before doing so, we need to first understand the social backdrop and cultural dimensions of the communities we’re working with so we could develop tailored and localized solutions that cater to the society’s unique needs, whether that’s with print media, radio, TV, or more.
All in all, it is important to speak the people’s language when we are communicating science in order to develop effective solutions, whether that’s with policy reform, policy decisions, or social programs.
