Median initial English consent document was 7,491.5 words at an estimated US$1,498 per translation

Description #

The magnitude of the translation expense at the centre: the median initial English consent document was 7,491.5 words (range 598–20,382), and at the centre's median rate of US$0.20 per word this implied an estimated US$1,498 per translation — a per-study, per-language cost that in non-industry trials falls on the investigator's fixed per-patient budget. Additional costs accrue at each protocol amendment.

"The median number of words in the initial English consent document was 7,491.5 (range 598 to 20,382 words), with an estimated cost of US $1,498 per translation. Additional costs would be incurred to translate a consent document at the time of protocol amendments, an amount that would vary by trial." (Maria, 2023, p. 856)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: the word count of initial English consent documents and the derived monetary cost of translating one into a single additional language.

"For simplicity, we assumed that every study had the initial consent document translated at 20 cents per word, the median cost for translation paid by the cancer centre during the evaluated period (Supplementary Methods)." (Maria, 2023, Methods)

How? #ⓘ

Word counts extracted from consent documents; cost computed as words × the centre's median per-word rate.

"Assessment of cost of consent document translation" (Maria, 2023, Methods)

Who? #ⓘ

Consent documents at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center over the 2013–2018 study period.

"the median cost for translation paid by the cancer centre during the evaluated period" (Maria, 2023, Methods)

Other Notes #

This is a single-centre cost estimate under a simplifying assumption (flat $0.20/word, initial document only); actual per-trial costs vary and amendment translations add more (see qualifying caveat).

Caveats #

• Translation-cost estimate assumes a flat per-word rate on the initial document only (Maria 2023) The US$1,498-per-translation figure is a simplified single-centre estimate: it assumes every study translated only the initial consent document, at a flat 20 cents per word (the centre's median rate over the period). Real per-trial costs vary, and additional translation costs are incurred at each protocol amendment — so the estimate is a lower-bound, centre-specific approximation rather than a generalizable cost.