1. HEALTH CARE AND LANGUAGE BARRIERS

1a. By Mario A. Flores

2. Access to health care by limited English-speaking patients: How do linguistic barriers impact limited English-speakers’ ability to obtain health care?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3. Personal Interest:

As an interpreter, I see first-hand how individuals who speak little or no English face cultural and linguistic barriers when seeking health care. I was interested in finding out what specific impact language barriers have on the health care of these populations.

4. Method:

First, I used the meta-search engine Google to find keywords and to hone my research question. Next, I used the UW Libraries Catalog and Research Databases to find articles. A review of the reference section of the more recent articles was very helpful. I found over 90 scholarly articles all from peer-reviewed journals spanning the last six years.

1. Google

2. UW Libraries Catalog

3. UW Libraries Research Databases

4. Reference Sections of Articles

5. Findings:

ü      Access and quality of health care are significantly affected by language barriers.

ü      Language barriers negatively impact patient-provider relationships.

ü      Treating non English-speaking patients without an interpreter can lead to serious clinical errors.

ü      Using a bilingual person not trained as a medical interpreter can lead to significant errors in diagnosis and treatment.

ü      The costs of not providing interpreters are higher than providing them.

6. What I learned:

Individuals who speak little or no English experience a significant negative impact on the quality and access to health care due to language barriers. Health care institutions cite elevated costs as a key argument against providing trained interpreters for these patients, but the few studies on this issue conclude it is more expensive in terms of utilization of services, diagnostic testing and serious errors not to communicate through a professional interpreter.