The American journal of psychiatry
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Reports of mental health care use by Latinos compared to Caucasians have been mixed. To the authors' knowledge, no large-scale studies have examined the effects of language on mental health service use for Latinos who prefer Spanish compared to Latinos who prefer English and to Caucasians. Language is the most frequently used proxy measure of acculturation. The authors used the administrative database of a mental health system to conduct a longitudinal examination of mental health service use among Spanish-speaking versus English-speaking Latinos and Caucasians with serious mental illness. ⋯ This study suggests that for Latinos, preferred language may be more important than ethnicity in mental health service use. Future studies comparing mental health use may need to differentiate between Spanish- and English-speaking Latinos.