Research in Nursing & Health, 2010, 33, 369–379 Strengthening Data Quality in Studies of Migrants Not Fluent in Host Languages: A Canadian Example With Reproductive Health Questionnaires Fay J. Strohschein, 1 * Lisa Merry, 1 ** Julia Thomas, 2{ Anita J. Gagnon 1,3,4z 1 School of Nursing, McGill University, 3506 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2A7, Canada 2 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 3 Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, McGill University, Quebec, Canada 4 Women’s Health Mission, McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), Quebec, Canada Accepted 4 May 2010 Abstract: The need to collect health data from refugees and asylum seekers often requires that questionnaires be translated. Verifying the clarity, meaning, and acceptability of translated questionnaires with monolingual persons, individuals from the target population who primarily speak and understand only the test language, is one important step in the translation process. Reproductive health questionnaires were tested with persons monolingual in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Spanish, and French. Testing revealed problematic questions and how culture, education, and migration experience can affect perceptions of questions. Bilingual liaisons from the communities of interest facilitated recruitment of participants, but liaisons’ vulnerable status and lack of familiarity with research posed challenges to the testing process. When conducting monolingual testing it is important to: carefully select liaisons (consider their gender, host-language fluency, knowledge of research processes, and comfort with the subject matter of the research); recruit monolingual persons with characteristics representative of the research population; ensure adequate researcher involvement in all aspects of the testing process to triangulate data collection from various sources. ß 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Res Nurs Health 33:369–379, 2010 Keywords: translation; refugees; asylum seekers; monolingual persons; interpreter; questionnaires; HIV/AIDS; sexually transmitted diseases At the end of 2008, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 2009) documented the presence of 15.2 million refugees and 827,000 asylum seekers (applicants for refugee The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Le Fonds de la Recherche en sante ´ du Que ´bec (FRSQ)—Career award for AJ Gagnon, Immigration et Me ´ tropoles (Centre of Excellence in Immigration Studies—Montreal). Correspondence to Anita J. Gagnon *PhD Candidate. **Research Coordinator. { Nurse. z Associate Professor; Nurse Scientist. Published online 21 June 2010 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/nur.20390 ß 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.