Self-reported fluency in non-english languages among physicians practicing in California.
OBJECTIVE
With increasing numbers of people with limited English proficiency in the United States, there is growing concern about the potential adverse effect of language barriers on patient care. We sought to compare the non-English language fluency of practicing physicians by physician race/ethnicity and location of medical school education.


METHODS
We used cross-sectional analyses of California Medical Board Survey (2007) data of 61,138 practicing physicians. Measures examined were self-reported physician language fluency in 34 languages, race/ethnicity, and medical school of graduation.


RESULTS
Forty-two percent of physicians reported having fluency in at least one language other than English. Fifty-six percent of international medical graduates (IMGs) reported fluency in a language other than English, compared to 37% of US medical graduates (USMG). Although the majority of physicians with fluency in Spanish are not Latino, fluency in Asian languages is primarily restricted to physicians who are of Asian race/ethnicity. Eighty-seven percent of physicians with fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese, or other Chinese languages are of Chinese ethnicity. A similar association between ethnicity and fluency was found for Southeast Asian languages, Pacific Island languages, and South Asian languages. IMGs constituted more than 80% of the physicians with fluency in Arabic, South Asian, and Pacific Islander languages.


CONCLUSIONS
IMGs contribute to the diversity of languages spoken by California physicians.
Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and Department of Family Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA. gemoreno@mednet.ucla.edu
Gerardo
G
Moreno
Kara Odom
KO
Walker
Kevin
K
Grumbach
D000368:Aged; D002140:California; D003144:Communication Barriers; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005550:Foreign Medical Graduates / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019303:Multilingualism; D010820:Physicians / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*