title: Primary household language and asthma care among Latino children.
abstract: To determine if language barriers affect the level of asthma management and quality of health care in Latino children, a cross-sectional, parent-report survey was conducted in 26 randomly selected public elementary schools in New York City. The overall response rate was 76.9%, yielding a sample of 1,847 Latino children. The prevalence of asthma among Latinos from Spanish-speaking households was 20.8%, compared with 25.8% among Latino children from English-speaking households. Although asthmatics from Spanish-speaking families were less likely to have symptoms than children from English-speaking families, they were twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma (9.4% vs. 4.4%, p<.02). Asthmatics from Spanish-speaking households were more likely to have public health insurance and to use a community/hospital clinic for care. Spanish-speaking parents were less likely to report having access to care on weekends or to have communicated with their child's physician about recommended components of an asthma management plan.
authors: Department of Community Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA. luz.claudio@mssm.edu
authors: Luz
authors: L
authors: Claudio
authors: Jeanette A
authors: JA
authors: Stingone
mesh_terms: D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003144:Communication Barriers; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009519:New York City / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence