Bridging Healthcare Disparities and Refugee Integration Challenges through a Clinically Centered Language Exchange Application

Despite the rise of globalization around the world, refugee and non-native speaking populations in their respective host countries face persistent disparities in healthcare access, quality, and outcomes. These challenges are exacerbated by linguistic and cultural barriers associated with poor integration of resources for refugee and immigrant populations, as well as a lack of diversity education among healthcare professionals. This honors thesis explores the corroborating factors that contribute to the challenging landscape of healthcare provision and acquisition for non-native speaking populations through the revision of pertinent literature and the proposal of a clinically centered mobile language exchange application to facilitate the development of strategies for healthcare workers to navigate multicultural and multilingual clinical experiences while equipping non-native speaking peoples to successfully navigate clinical and social settings in their respective host countries.