• Ibrahim Mahmoud, Xiang-Yu Hou, Kevin Chu, and Michele Clark.
• School of Public Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
• Emerg Med Australas. 2013 Feb 1;25(1):40-5.

ObjectiveTo compare access and utilisation of EDs in Queensland public hospitals between people who speak only English at home and those who speak another language at home.MethodsA retrospective analysis of a Queensland statewide hospital ED dataset (ED Information System) from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2010 was conducted. Access to ED care was measured by the proportion of the state's population attending EDs. Logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the relationships between ambulance use and language, and between hospital admission and language, both after adjusting for age, sex and triage category.ResultsThe ED utilisation rate was highest in English only speakers (290 per 1000 population), followed by Arabic speakers (105), and lowest among German speakers (30). Compared with English speakers, there were lower rates of ambulance use in Chinese (odds ratio 0.50, 95% confidence interval, 0.47-0.54), Vietnamese (0.87, 0.79-0.95), Arabic (0.87, 0.78-0.97), Spanish (0.56, 0.50-0.62), Italian (0.88, 0.80-0.96), Hindi (0.61, 0.53-0.70) and German (0.87, 0.79-0.90) speakers. Compared with English speakers, German speakers had higher admission rates (odds ratio 1.17, 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.34), whereas there were lower admission rates in Chinese (0.90, 0.86-0.99), Arabic (0.76, 0.67-0.85) and Spanish (0.83, 0.75-0.93) speakers.ConclusionThis study showed that there was a significant association between lower utilisation of emergency care and speaking languages other than English at home. Further researches are needed using in-depth methodology to investigate if there are language barriers in accessing emergency care in Queensland.© 2012 The Authors. EMA © 2012 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine.

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