Considerable attention has been drawn to the impact of limited English skills on patients’ capacity to effectively engage with their physicians and access optimal healthcare. However, a recent study highlights that language barriers, specifically English proficiency, can pose a substantial hurdle for cancer patients, hindering their initial appointments with specialists.
What the Study Shows
Here are some of the interesting things things the study uncovered:
- Individuals proficient in English who contacted hospital general information lines in the U.S. achieved a remarkable success rate of nearly 94%.
- They either received prompt access to the contact details for a cancer clinic or were directly connected to the clinic itself.
- When it comes to Spanish speakers, their transition to the subsequent stage occurred merely 38% of the time.
- For Mandarin Chinese speakers, this number was just 28%.
This incapacity to advance beyond the initial point of contact with a hospital can carry significant repercussions for countless Americans, stated lead researcher Dr. Debbie Chen.
There are over 60 million individuals conversing in languages other than English within their households and over 25 million possessing limited English proficiency, as indicated by 2010 Census data referenced by Chen. This forms a substantial segment of the entire U.S. population, which currently tops 330 million.
Chen stated that when considering access to care, a substantial part of it originates well before encountering a physician. She pointed out that the hospital general information line typically functions as the initial entry point for numerous patients who seek guidance regarding clinic locations or available hospital services. Therefore, they believed it represented a highly pertinent location for assessing access to cancer care.
the study involved callers who conversed in English, Spanish, or Chinese reaching out to 144 hospitals scattered across 12 states within the U,S,. This investigation unfolded between November 2021 and June 2022, encompassing nearly 1,300 calls distributed among the three aforementioned languages.
The callers honed in on inquiries about colon, lung, and thyroid cancer, conditions that affect Hispanic and Asian populations in higher proportions. Their objective was to gauge who could successfully navigate past the initial point of contact with the hospitals.
The outcomes revealed a stark contrast: a significant majority of English speakers seamlessly advanced to the next phase, whereas Spanish and Chinese speakers encountered notably greater hurdles in transcending the initial informational interaction.
The ramifications of this challenge extend beyond the realm of general healthcare accessibility, posing a particularly menacing predicament for individuals grappling with a cancer diagnosis. The concern lies not only in securing access but also in the quality of access required for comprehensive cancer treatment.
To address this critical issue, Chen and her team advocate for the inclusion of automatic messaging in different languages on general information lines, ensuring that language barriers are surmounted. Moreover, they suggest that these lines should default to connecting callers with live personnel instead of abruptly ending the call in cases of no immediate input.
