• Tahlia Hodes, Miguel Marino, Jennifer A Lucas, Andrew Bazemore, Lars Peterson, Michelle K Trivedi, Sophia Giebultowicz, and John Heintzman.
• From the Department of Family Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University (THM, MM, JAL, JH); American Board of Family Medicine (AB, LP); Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School/UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center (MKT); OCHIN, Inc. (SG, JH).
• J Am Board Fam Med. 2023 Aug 9; 36 (4): 616625616-625.

BackgroundLanguage concordance between Latinx patients and their clinicians has been shown to affect health outcomes. In addition, there is evidence that consistent continuity of care (COC) can improve health care outcomes. The relationship between language concordance and COC and their association with health equity in chronic disease is less clear. Our aim was to study the moderating effect of clinician and patient language concordance on the association between COC and asthma care quality in Latinx children.MethodsWe utilized an electronic health record dataset from a multistate network of community health centers to compare influenza vaccinations and inhaled steroid prescriptions, by ethnicity and language concordance groups overall and stratified by COC.ResultsWe analyzed electronic health records for children with asthma (n = 38,442) age 3 to 17 years with ≥2 office visits between 2005 to 2017. Overall, 64% of children had low COC (defined as COC < 0.5) while 21% had high COC (defined as >0.75). All Latinx children had higher rates and odds of receiving influenza vaccination compared with non-Hispanic White children. In addition, Spanish-preferring Latinx children had higher rates and odds of being prescribed inhaled steroids while English-preferring Latinx children had lower odds (OR = 0.85 95%CI = 0.73,0.98) compared with non-Hispanic White children.ConclusionOverall, Latinx children regardless of COC category or language concordance were more likely to receive the influenza vaccine. English-preferring Latinx children with persistent asthma received fewer inhaled steroid prescriptions compared with non-Hispanic White children. Panel chart review and seeing a practice partner might be one way to combat these inequities.© Copyright by the American Board of Family Medicine.

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