“In Spanish”: Advancing Public Health

In 2014, for every scientific article in Spanish indexed by the US National Library of Medicine, 125 English articles were indexed. Although it is estimated that Spanish is the language with the second most number of speakers globally, the unequal availability of scientific literature in this language is clear. Could this deficiency affect the achievement of public health objectives?

There are benefits of adopting a single language, English, to communicate the advances in health sciences. Given its reach in the media and its influence on global commerce, English allows faster dissemination of information to those who can access it.