Texas: Children In Non-English-speaking Households Face Many Health Disparities, Researcher Concludes

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...

Children In Non-English-speaking Households Face Many Health
Disparities, Researcher Concludes

ScienceDaily (Jun. 11, 2008) - Children in U.S. households where
English is not the primary language experience multiple disparities in
health care, a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has found. In
a study available in June's online issue of Pediatrics, Dr. Glenn
Flores, professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern and lead author,
used statistics from the National Survey of Children's Health to
examine whether disparities exist for non-English primary language
(NEPL) children in medical and dental health compared to households
where English is the primary language.

"Although 55 million Americans speak a language other than English at
home, there has been little research on health disparities and NEPL
children," said Dr. Flores, who holds the Judith and Charles Ginsburg
Chair in Pediatrics at UT Southwestern. "To my knowledge this is the
first analysis to examine the impact of NEPL on medical and dental
health, access to care and use of services in a nationally
representative sample of U.S. children."

Conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, the survey
used nationwide random sampling of households with children ages 18
and under. One child from each household was selected as the survey
subject with 102,353 interviews of household caregivers completed in
2003 and 2004 in both English and Spanish. The survey is the largest
and most diverse containing data on the primary languages spoken at
home.

The researchers found that children in households where English is not
the primary language are significantly more likely than children in
English-speaking households to be poor and Latino or Asian/Pacific
Islander. The NEPL children are also more likely to be overweight,
have only fair or poor dental health, and be uninsured or sporadically
insured. These children also made no medical or preventive dental
visits during the previous year and had problems attaining specialty
care.

Full story:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080611071033.htm



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