IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v226y2019icp29-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Bell, Susan E.

Abstract

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 nonhuman 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Bell, Susan E., 2019. "Interpreter assemblages: Caring for immigrant and refugee patients in US hospitals," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 29-36.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:226:y:2019:i:c:p:29-36
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361930098X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.031?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hsieh, Elaine, 2007. "Interpreters as co-diagnosticians: Overlapping roles and services between providers and interpreters," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 924-937, February.
    2. Leanza, Yvan & Boivin, Isabelle & Rosenberg, Ellen, 2010. "Interruptions and resistance: A comparison of medical consultations with family and trained interpreters," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 1888-1895, June.
    3. Lo, Ming-Cheng Miriam & Bahar, Roxana, 2013. "Resisting the colonization of the lifeworld? Immigrant patients' experiences with co-ethnic healthcare workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 68-76.
    4. Holliday, Ruth & Bell, David & Cheung, Olive & Jones, Meredith & Probyn, Elspeth, 2015. "Brief encounters: Assembling cosmetic surgery tourism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 298-304.
    5. Greenhalgh, Trisha & Robb, Nadia & Scambler, Graham, 2006. "Communicative and strategic action in interpreted consultations in primary health care: A Habermasian perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 1170-1187, September.
    6. Locock, Louise & Nettleton, Sarah & Kirkpatrick, Susan & Ryan, Sara & Ziebland, Sue, 2016. "‘I knew before I was told’: Breaches, cues and clues in the diagnostic assemblage," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 85-92.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Duff, Cameron, 2023. "The ends of an assemblage of health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lo, Ming-Cheng Miriam & Bahar, Roxana, 2013. "Resisting the colonization of the lifeworld? Immigrant patients' experiences with co-ethnic healthcare workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 68-76.
    2. Laura Kemppainen & Veera Koskinen & Harley Bergroth & Eetu Marttila & Teemu Kemppainen, 2021. "Health and Wellness–Related Travel: A Scoping Study of the Literature in 2010-2018," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, May.
    3. Kilian, Sanja & Swartz, Leslie & Dowling, Tessa & Dlali, Mawande & Chiliza, Bonginkosi, 2014. "The potential consequences of informal interpreting practices for assessment of patients in a South African psychiatric hospital," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 159-167.
    4. Álvaro Aranda, Cristina & Gutiérrez, Raquel Lázaro & Li, Shuangyu, 2021. "Towards a collaborative structure of interpreter-mediated medical consultations: Complementing functions between healthcare interpreters and providers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    5. Leanza, Yvan & Boivin, Isabelle & Rosenberg, Ellen, 2010. "Interruptions and resistance: A comparison of medical consultations with family and trained interpreters," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 1888-1895, June.
    6. MacFarlane, Anne & Singleton, Carrie & Green, Eileen, 2009. "Language barriers in health and social care consultations in the community: A comparative study of responses in Ireland and England," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(2-3), pages 203-210, October.
    7. Seale, Clive & Rivas, Carol & Al-Sarraj, Hela & Webb, Sarah & Kelly, Moira, 2013. "Moral mediation in interpreted health care consultations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 141-148.
    8. van Bijleveld, G.G. & Dedding, C.W.M. & Bunders-Aelen, J.F.G., 2014. "Seeing eye to eye or not? Young people's and child protection workers' perspectives on children's participation within the Dutch child protection and welfare services," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(P3), pages 253-259.
    9. Parveen Azam Ali & Roger Watson, 2018. "Language barriers and their impact on provision of care to patients with limited English proficiency: Nurses' perspectives," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(5-6), pages 1152-1160, March.
    10. Deumert, Ana, 2010. "'It would be nice if they could give us more language' - Serving South Africa's multilingual patient base," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 53-61, July.
    11. Smith, Sarah A., 2016. "Migrant encounters in the clinic: Bureaucratic, biomedical, and community influences on patient interactions with front-line workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 49-56.
    12. Ahuva Even-Zohar & Varda Shtanger & Anat Israeli & Emma Averbuch & Gad Segal & Haim Mayan & Shmuel Steinlauf & Alex Galper & Eyal Zimlichman, 2021. "The Association between Health and Culture: The Perspective of Older Adult Hospital In-Patients in Israel," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-12, June.
    13. Lo, Ming-Cheng M. & Nguyen, Emerald T., 2021. "Resisting the racialization of medical deservingness: How Latinx nurses produce symbolic resources for Latinx immigrants in clinical encounters," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    14. Nielsen, Maj Rørdam & Jervelund, Signe Smith, 2023. "Impacts of an interpretation fee on immigrants’ access to healthcare: Evidence from a Danish survey study among newly arrived immigrants," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    15. Bridges, Susan & Drew, Paul & Zayts, Olga & McGrath, Colman & Yiu, Cynthia K.Y. & Wong, H.M. & Au, T.K.F., 2015. "Interpreter-mediated dentistry," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 197-207.
    16. Xinyan Shi & Lydia Gan, 2023. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets with Medical Tourism," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 11(2), pages 246-269, August.
    17. Puthoopparambil, Soorej Jose & Phelan, Mary & MacFarlane, Anne, 2021. "Migrant health and language barriers: Uncovering macro level influences on the implementation of trained interpreters in healthcare settings," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(8), pages 1085-1091.
    18. Macdonald, Sara & Conway, Elaine & Bikker, Annemieke & Browne, Susan & Robb, Kathryn & Campbell, Christine & Steele, Robert JC. & Weller, David & Macleod, Una, 2019. "Making sense of bodily sensations: Do shared cancer narratives influence symptom appraisal?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 31-39.
    19. Wei, Wan, 2024. "Beyond the patient-doctor dyad: Examining “other” patient engagement in Traditional Chinese Medicine consultations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    20. Martin, Graham P. & Chew, Sarah & Dixon-Woods, Mary, 2021. "Why do systems for responding to concerns and complaints so often fail patients, families and healthcare staff? A qualitative study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:226:y:2019:i:c:p:29-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.