Health News

NO INSURANCE AND LIMITED ENGLISH HURT HISPANIC PATIENTS

   By Becky Ham, Staff Writer
   Health Behavior News Service

Feb. 27, 2003- Hispanic patients who lack health insurance and have problems
communicating with their doctors are less apt to seek medical help than whites
or blacks, a new study reports.

These two factors may be taking a toll on Hispanic adult health: The
number of Spanish-speaking Hispanics who say they are in fair or poor
health is more than twice that of whites, blacks and predominantly
English-speaking Hispanics, according to Michelle M. Doty, Ph.D., author of
the study published by the Commonwealth Fund.

“Hispanics are more likely than any other group in the U.S. to be
uninsured and to have difficulty obtaining access to health care, and this
problem is made worse by language barriers,” says Fund president Karen
Davis.

Doty says that lack of health insurance may be one reason why only 69
percent of Hispanic adults with health problems visited a health care
provider in the past year, compared with 83 percent of whites and 84
percent of blacks.

Patients who speak limited English face even greater barriers to health
care. Two-thirds of uninsured Spanish-speaking Hispanics surveyed in
the study said that they did not have a regular doctor.

The study found that Spanish speakers often have trouble communicating
with their doctors, along with problems reading prescription labels and
written health information from their doctor’s office. Even after
taking into account differences in insurance, income and education,
Spanish-speaking Hispanics had more communication difficulties than either
whites or blacks.

In most cases, interpreters were not available to help out, says Doty.
Although 44 percent of the Hispanic patients surveyed said that they
had a hard time speaking with their doctor, only half of those said that
they usually had access to a translator when they needed one.

One-third of Hispanic patients rely on public clinics for health care,
which suggests these clinics might be a good place to reach out to poor
patients who speak mostly Spanish.

“Programs that focus on improving patient and doctor communication in
community or public health centers would reach and benefit a significant
number of Hispanics who carry the double burden of lack of insurance
and limited English proficiency,” Doty says.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Health Behavior News Service: (202) 387-2829 or www.hbns.org.


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Embargoed for Release
Feb. 27, 2003, 10 a.m. ET

MINORITIES SHOW SIGNS OF IMPROVED HEALTH DURING 1990s

   By Becky Ham, Staff Writer
   Health Behavior News Service

Feb. 27, 2003- Racial and ethnic minorities, especially blacks, showed some signs of
improved health through the 1990s, while the health gap between urban
and suburban residents narrowed, according to a report released today.

Despite these gains, minority health still lags behind that of whites
in the nation’s 100 largest cities and suburbs, say researchers from
SUNY Downstate Medical Center and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Urban blacks experienced the biggest decreases in teen pregnancy and
low birth weight rates during the 1990s, and urban and suburban blacks
also had the highest increased rate of prenatal care. But these key
indicators of health in blacks still lag far behind those in whites, say
SUNY Downstate’s Dennis Andrulis, Ph.D., and colleagues.

“Our findings for urban and suburban black residents is very good news,
but we must keep it in perspective. Despite the impressive gains,
averages for black residents remain well below those for whites on virtually
all measures,” Andrulis says.

Hispanics received a mixed bill of health in the 1990s, according to
the report. While teen pregnancy rates fell slightly, low birth weights
and prenatal care rates edged upward.

Health differences between blacks and Hispanics may relate to economic
trends, according to Andrulis and colleagues. Hispanic poverty rates
and per capita income have remained relatively stagnant, compared to
economic gains in other racial and ethnic groups.

Rates of low birth weights increased the most among suburban white
women, rising by 17 percent between 1990 and 2000. According to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, the increase in low birth weight
among these women may be due in part to older mothers using assisted
reproductive technologies.

The upswing in suburban white low birth weights, along with the
progress made by urban blacks on a number of health indicators, could help
explain why urban and suburban measures of health are converging, say the
researchers.

Along with indicators of maternal and infant health, the study also
tracked tuberculosis rates between 1996 and 2000. Overall rates fell for
whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians, even while rates rose 6 percent
among foreign-born residents. Asians still have the highest rates of
infection, 15 times that of whites.

The report emphasizes that health disparities remained persistent in
the 1990s, despite a booming economy and some gains in health across all
racial and ethnic groups.

“If improvements are to be sustained and disparities significantly
diminished, public and community health leaders need to recognize that
growing diversity in the cities and suburbs means that both areas require
attention,” Andrulis says.

Access to the full report and to city-specific data is available at
http://www.downstate.edu/healthdata.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Health Behavior News Service: (202) 387-2829 or www.hbns.org.


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