Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-10-2024

Identifier

DOI: 10.1097/pq9.0000000000000744; PMCID: PMC11236400

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Disparities exist in access to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related health information. We aimed to close a gap in online traffic between English and Spanish COVID-19-related health information on our institution's publicly-facing website by 50% within ten months.

METHODS: We used A3 improvement methodology. Outcome measures were the mean monthly difference between English and Spanish COVID-19 online traffic vis-a-vis (1) total webpage views and (2) unique webpage visits. Process measures were stratification of outcome measures by language. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles included: Recurring advertisements on a local Spanish television station disseminating up-to-date COVID-19 information, including our institution's Spanish COVID-19 online resources, incorporation of QR codes into clinic discharge paperwork linking to institutional Spanish COVID-19 resources, and leveraging social media to expand reach. Control charts assessed impact over time.

RESULTS: There were 1,226,196 total webpage views (369,983 Spanish; 856,213 English) and 1,065,536 unique webpage visits (350,518 Spanish; 715,018 English). Both outcome measures displayed sustained, special cause improvement from a mean monthly difference of 25,397 to 11,321 webpage views (55.4% reduction, June 2021) and 25,066 to 7080 unique webpage visits (71.8% reduction, February 2021) corresponding to special cause improvements in process measures. Improvements were not temporally associated with an intervention but coincided with emergency use approval of the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 12-15 years (May 2021).

CONCLUSIONS: Although our interventions did not directly show improvements in our measures, we noted increased page views of Spanish COVID-19-related health information on our institution's publicly-facing website in times of high demand for linguistically appropriate services, including pediatric vaccine roll-out.

Journal Title

Pediatr Qual Saf

Volume

9

Issue

4

First Page

744

Last Page

744

Comments

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Publisher's Link: https://journals.lww.com/pqs/fulltext/2024/07000/combating_disparities_in_a_pandemic__increasing.2.aspx

Download

Share

COinS