Voices unheard: Bridging language gaps, ensuring equity and inclusion of non‐native speakers in health research and clinical trials

In a globalized world, the ability to communicate in different languages has never been more important, especially in the healthcare context. However, despite the need for inclusion and diversity in many health care settings, significant gaps remain regarding the inclusion of non-native speakers and individuals with language difficulties in health service and clinical research. This violates the principles of equity and fairness. In the current literature, number of published studies stipulate exclusion of study participants based on language proficiency (Boyde et al., 2018; Egleston et al., 2015;Muthukumar et al., 2021). For instance, a significant number(18.98%) of international clinical trials in USA exclude participants who can't understand English or are not native speakers, and only2.7% specifically mentioned translation of research materials to an-other language (Muthukumar et al., 2021).