Derose K P, Baker D W
University of California, Los Angeles RAND Health, USA.
Med Care Res Rev. 2000 Mar;57(1):76-91. doi: 10.1177/107755870005700105.
Many Latinos have limited English proficiency and this may negatively affect their use of health care services. To examine this, the authors interviewed 465 Spanish-speaking Latinos and 259 English speakers of various ethnicities who presented to a public hospital emergency department with non-urgent medical problems to assess previous physician visits, sociodemographic characteristics, and level of English proficiency. The proportion of patients who reported no physician visit during the 3 months before study enrollment was not related to English proficiency. However, among the 414 patients who saw a physician at least once, Latinos with fair and poor English proficiency reported approximately 22 percent fewer physician visits (p = 0.020 and p = 0.015, respectively) than non-Latinos whose native language was English, even after adjusting for other determinants of physician visits. The magnitude of the association between limited English proficiency and number of physician visits was similar to that for having poor health, no health insurance, or no regular source of care.
许多拉丁裔人的英语水平有限，这可能会对他们获得医疗保健服务产生负面影响。为了对此进行研究，作者采访了465名讲西班牙语的拉丁裔人和259名讲英语的不同种族的人，这些人因非紧急医疗问题前往一家公立医院急诊科就诊，以评估他们之前看医生的情况、社会人口学特征以及英语水平。在研究入组前3个月内报告未看过医生的患者比例与英语水平无关。然而，在至少看过一次医生的414名患者中，英语水平一般和较差的拉丁裔人报告的看医生次数比以英语为母语的非拉丁裔人少约22%（分别为p = 0.020和p = 0.015），即使在对其他看医生的决定因素进行调整之后也是如此。英语水平有限与看医生次数之间的关联程度与健康状况不佳、没有医疗保险或没有固定医疗服务来源的情况相似。
