People who don’t speak English at home are less likely to get adequate health care because of language barriers between patients and health providers, according to a Boston Medical Center study released on Tuesday.
BMC and the Boston University School of Public Health conducted a study examining individuals 50 years of age and older who were being screened for colorectal cancer in order to determine the relationship between those individuals’ ability to communicate with their health providers and their willingness to seek medical attention in the U.S.
According to the 2005&-2007 American Community Survey, nearly 20 percent of Americans don’t speak English at home. By 2050, this figure will jump to about half of the U.S.’s population.
In the study, BMC and BUSPH looked at native English speakers, non-English speakers who could communicate in their native tongue with their health providers and non-English speakers who could not communicate with their providers.
The results of the study found that in general, English speakers had higher rates of CRC screening than non-English speakers.
However, it was also found that while non-English speakers who could not communicate with their health providers had the same CRC screening rates as English speakers, non-English speakers who had someone to translate for them at their providers’ office had lower CRC screening rates.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Amy Linsky, MD, a fellow in general internal medicine at BMC, said the results were “unexpected,” according to a statement by BU.
Co-investigator and BUSPH student Nathalie McIntosh said in the statement that language barriers don’t completely correspond with individuals’ CRC screening rates.
“Our results suggest that providers should especially promote the importance of CRC screenings to non-English speaking patients, but that patient-provider language barriers do not fully account for lower CRC screening in patients who do not speak English at home,” she said.
“Professional interpreters and language-concordant providers may be necessary, but not sufficient to mitigate these disparities,” Linsky said.
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