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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Mona Sarfaty, MD, Prevention and Community Health, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and the Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County, MD, 8757 Georgia Avenue, 10th Floor, Silver Spring, MD 20910, 301-628-3413, mona_sarfaty@primarycarecoalition.org and Elizabeth Damotta, Primary Care Coalition, 8757 Georgia Avenue, 10th Floor, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
The setting is a large affluent suburban county adjacent to Washington, D.C with a diverse population of immigrants. The Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County, MD (PCC) is a private non-profit partner to the county’s department of health and human services. The PCC’s oldest project, Project Access, is a volunteer referral network of doctors and other providers which contributes medical care to low income uninsured county residents. To improve access to project doctors for Latino immigrants, the project hired a translator-case manager who accompanied selected patients to private physicians’ offices. Patients received this help based on a telephone assessment of whether they lacked options for translation. The patients who required assistance represented one third of the Spanish speaking immigrants who received referrals from the project. A questionnaire administered at the time of the office visit revealed striking characteristics, particularly regarding educational level. The group was overwhelmingly from Central and South America, typical of the Latino population in the area. Seventy-five percent were employed. Sixty percent had less than four years of education; and eighty percent had less than eight years of education, even though sixty percent were in the United States for more than five years. This study suggests that educational programs are greatly needed for low income immigrants from Central and South America. Translation assistance is a crucial link to main stream community health services and provides an opportunity for assessments which are needed to gather information about the health knowledge and status of these individuals.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Minority Health, Latino Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.