Posts Tagged: doctors
Language may impact diabetes care for Latinos with limited English
When researchers studied 31,000 patients with diabetes who received insurance and healthcare through Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, they found that about 60 percent of Spanish-speaking Latino patients skipped filling prescriptions at least 20 percent of the time in the two years after they were told they needed the drugs to help control the disease.
That rate was only about 52 percent among English-speaking Latino patients and 38 percent among white patients.
"Latino patients with diabetes, even when insured and facing relatively low barriers to healthcare, are much more likely to have poor medication adherence than their white counterparts," said lead study author Dr. Alicia Fernandez, a researcher at San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco.
The study didn't find any difference in medication adherence for diabetics with limited English based on whether they saw Spanish-speaking doctors.
This suggests factors beyond just language and communication may come into play, researchers conclude in JAMA Internal Medicine.
"Physicians who care for Latino patients with diabetes should focus on medication adherence and explore individual barriers to adherence," Fernandez added by email. "These may include lack of 'buy-in' to medication treatment, concern regarding side effects, concerns regarding costs, and competing life demands on medication use and self-care."
But while this study didn't find that having Spanish-speaking doctors improved medication adherence, a separate study of Latino diabetics published in the same journal did see some benefit.
The researchers on the second study also looked at data from Kaiser Permanente, in this case to see whether patients with limited English proficiency might have better blood sugar control when they switched from English-speaking to Spanish-speaking primary care physicians.
This study included about 1,600 Latino patients who preferred speaking Spanish to English.
At the start of the study, 54 percent of these patients saw a primary care provider who didn't speak Spanish. During the study, 48 percent of this group of patients switched to a Spanish-speaking doctor.
After this switch to Spanish-speaking doctors, 74 percent of these patients had blood sugar in a healthy range, up from 63 percent when they saw English-speaking doctors. This increase was 10 percent more than the patients who just switched from one English-speaking doctor to another.
"Having a primary care provider that speaks your language appears to be important for several reasons; it improves lines of communication, may reduce the risk of misunderstandings, increases patient satisfaction and now there is evidence that it may also improve management of diabetes," said lead study author Melissa Parker, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California.
Both studies have some limitations, including the lack of data on some factors that can influence how much patients take their medicine or follow advice from doctors, such as health literacy or the degree of spoken or written abilities in English and Spanish for physicians and patients.
Still, the results from these studies suggest that it would make sense to prioritize access to Spanish-speaking doctors for Latinos with limited English who are newly diagnosed with diabetes, Dr. Eliseo Perez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, writes in an accompanying editorial.
That's because seeing a doctor who speaks Spanish may be more important for establishing a treatment regimen than maintaining one, Perez-Stable writes.
"Communication between clinicians and patients is essential in most aspects of medicine but it is especially true in management of a chronic disease such as diabetes," Perez-Stable said by email.
Ideally, there would be more Spanish-speaking and bilingual doctors, Perez-Stable added by email. Absent that, patients should make sure there's a professional interpreter available and also bring someone to clinic visits who is bilingual and can help support the treatment plan after patients go home.
Source: Published originally on foxnews.com, Language may impact diabetes care for Latinos with limited English,, January 24, 2017.
New findings show Hispanics’ sources for healthcare information
The results were consistent with research conducted by Pew in 2008. Hispanics have the same motivators and attitudes in how they receive healthcare information, and they can still be reached the same way, too—whether it's through clinics, doctors or TV. Here are some of the findings.
Trust Multiple Sources
Doctors are the most trusted source of healthcare information for both Hispanics and non-Hispanics. However, Hispanics seem to trust significantly more. In fact, Hispanics are much more likely to say doctors (66% vs. 58% for non-Hispanics), clinics (54% vs. 31% for non-Hispanics) and hospitals (56% vs. 37% for non-Hispanics) are extremely trustworthy.
Pharmacists, however, have a lower trust score – only 38% say they find pharmacists extremely trustworthy vs. 50 percent of non-Hispanics. This may be because the role of the pharmacist is very different in the U.S. than in many Hispanic countries of origin. In Latin America, pharmacists develop relationships with their customers and spend time listening to their needs. They are considered true partners in the Latino healthcare universe. U.S. pharmacies stand to gain a lot with Hispanic patients if they work on building those relationships, too.
More Likely to Take Action
TV, radio and digital play a strong role in how Hispanics receive health information. And, across the board, Hispanics are more likely to take action from the information they receive vs. non-Hispanics. For example, Hispanics are at least 23 percent more likely than non-Hispanics to say that online, TV or radio healthcare messages “led me to see a doctor or medical professional about a specific drug.” When you dig deeper, Hispanic women are even more likely to take action than their male counterparts. This suggests that healthcare marketers may see better results if they target their campaigns toward these Chief Medical Officers of the household.
Hispanics are listening to, trusting and reacting to healthcare messages from many sources. They also tend to worry more about the health and wellness of their families (78 percent say they worry a “great deal” vs. 59 percent of non-Hispanics).
Source: Published originally on Univision Hispanic Insights Weekly Digest as New Findings Show Hispanics' Sources for Healthcare Information byEric Talbot, August 6, 2014.
More Hispanics pursuing a medical degree
![Medical school Medical school](http://ucanr.org/blogs/LatinoBriefs/blogfiles/10855.jpg)
The same trend was seen on the total number of first year enrollees to U.S. medical schools. Among Latinos, the number of first year enrolled students in 2011 was reported at 1,633 - a three percent increase compared to the 1,539 Latino students enrolled in 2010. Eight percent of enrolled students into U.S. medical schools in 2011 were Latino.
To see the report, visit https://www.aamc.org/.
Source: Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), More Hispanics Pursuing a Degree in Medicine School, January 26, 2012.