Translating From English to Spanish

Abstract

In 2002, the National Center for Health Statistics conducted Cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), surveying a nationally representative sample of 12,500 women and men from 15 to 44 years of age, including more than 2,700 Hispanics. The process for developing the Spanish version of the NSFG included modified committee translation, review of the instrument for cultural difficulties and misunderstandings, cognitive interviewing, and extensive pretesting. Interviewer debriefing provided additional information about the Spanish instrument. Challenges to developing an easily understood instrument included the language level of the survey, language misunderstandings, and cultural issues. To improve surveys of this type, sufficient time should be allowed for translation and qualitative testing. Debriefing of interviewers is a valuable source of data on instrument issues.

Keywords

translation Spanish Hispanics National Survey of Family Growth cognitive interviewing

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