Limited English Proficiency and Health Care Disparities

Did you know, over 20 million people in the US are limited English proficient (LEP)?

The other day, we had a really cool and sexy workshop on patients who are LEP and the health care disparities they are forced to experience. It reminded me of the first time I had to use an interpreter in clinic, and how awful I felt because it seemed like most of the interview was lost in translation. Anyway, I thought these statistics were quite alarming, so I wanted to share them with all of you!

Although most physicians believe they spend more time with LEP patients, they in fact spend the same amount of time with their patient, despite the use of an interpreter.

In a study of six hospitals, 49% of adverse events experienced by LEP patients resulted in physical harm vs 29% with English speakers. 52% of these errors were more likely a result of communication problems.

Now here's the doozie:

A study of children coming from families with LEP showed that:

-these children had triple the odds of having fair to poor health statuses
-double the odds of spending at least one day in bed for illness in the past year
-and had significantly greater odds of not being brought in for needed medical care

Now ain't that something to swallow! These numbers are just ridiculously unacceptable. However, what can we do to make this better? THAT is the million dolla question. Although we don't have the end all be all answer, I think we can all agree that at least for our communities, we must recruit more native spanish speakers into medicine so that we can provide real cultural competent health care to our people.