National Cancer Institute Goes Online with new Spanish-Language Web Site.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched a new Internet Web site, cancer.gov en español http://www.cancer.gov/espanol>, that will serve as a Spanish-language version of the official NCI Web site, cancer.gov. The new Web site is completely in Spanish and is one of the latest tools developed by NCI in its efforts to address cancer health disparities. The Web site is tailored to Spanish-speakers and members of the Hispanic/Latino community in the United States. There are approximately 40 million Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and about 30 million of those persons speak Spanish. Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S.

While visitors to cancer.gov en español will get the same general type of information that visitors find on the English-language cancer.gov site, visitors to cancer.gov en español will see similar information that is both culturally and linguistically appropriate to their needs, from how content is organized on the site to the cancer support services and resources that are most important for this community. The new site is not simply a word-for-word translation of the cancer.gov English site, but rather an original site that was developed based on user research with Hispanics/Latinos looking for cancer information online. The site serves the needs of several audiences within the Hispanic/Latino population cancer patients and their families, health care providers who are either Hispanic/Latino or serve Hispanic/Latino patients, and the advocacy community.

NCI previously published Web-based cancer information in Spanish, but this new site marks the first time NCI has created new content for a dynamic site that is tailored to the online information seeking needs of the U.S. Hispanic/Latino community. This is also the first time NCI has conducted specific research to identify and address the online cancer information needs of Spanish-speakers within the U.S.