Bridging Language Gaps in Healthcare: Multilingual NLP for Enhanced Health Literacy and Data Analysis
Mouheb Mehdoui, Amel Fraisse, Jinie Pak, Yeong-Tae Song, Widad Mustafa El Hadi, Mounir Zrigui · 2025
Social media platforms and online communities have become essential sources for sharing information on medical issues and expressing personal health experiences. Platforms like Reddit’s r/health, health boards, and Quora serve as vital spaces where researchers and health-interested individuals can gather and exchange information for various purposes.According to official web statistics from Quora and Reddit, Reddit hosts over 3 million niche communities and receives approximately 1.9 billion monthly visits, making it a central hub for diverse discussions, including health-related topics. Quora, with around 300 million monthly active users, is another significant platform, offering a wealth of Q&A discussions that provide valuable insights into health issues and personal experiences.In recent years, evaluating health literacy has become an important area of research. Researchers are increasingly focused on assessing users’ abilities to manage, express, and engage with health-related information.This paper aims to cover the most common definitions of health literacy, the opportunities and threats it presents, as well as the available datasets for these studies, without neglecting the challenges inherent in this field of research.