Characterizing Language Services in California's Primary Care Safety Net
Hector Rodriguez, Professor
Public Health
Applications for Fall 2025 are closed for this project.
Quality of care disparities between patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) and patients proficient in English have been well documented. Language barriers between patients and providers can lead to medical errors, poor chronic condition management, and undue difficulty accessing care. LEP status is highly correlated with other risk factors for low quality of care, including being uninsured, low income, having lower educational attainment, and being born outside of the U.S.. In California, an estimated 7 million people speak English “less than very well”, making professional medical interpretation a key resource for addressing quality of care disparities.
Community health centers (CHCs) care for underserved populations, including a substantial share of LEP patients; however, these organizations frequently do not have the financial resources or staffing bandwidth to hire dedicated medical interpreters. Despite the critical role CHCs and other safety net practices play, no comprehensive data currently exist to describe their language access capabilities or the practice characteristics associated with stronger language access systems.
This study aims to fill that gap by surveying and interviewing CHCs and other safety net practices across California to:
1) Characterize their language access services, resources, and infrastructure.
2) Identify practice-level factors associated with more robust capabilities.
3) Explore barriers and facilitators to interpreter use among safety net providers.
The objective of this project is to analyze survey data focused on language access services and infrastructure of 150 safety net primary care practices across California. The primary goal is to understand and improve how language access needs are met for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP). Findings will inform policy and technical assistance efforts to strengthen language access across California’s primary care safety net.
This project is funded by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF).
Role: Responsibilities of the student include:
● Descriptive statistical analysis of survey results.
● Develop survey summary reports and brief presentations for participating primary care practice leaders
● Table construction and reference management for the project's manuscripts.
● Co-authorship opportunities are available.
Qualifications: ● Interest in healthcare organizational efforts to provide culturally competent care to populations with LEP.
● Experience or interest in analyzing data using R, SAS, or STATA.
● Experience generating summary statistics tables and data visualizations
● Strong communication skills and intellectual curiosity are preferred.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Jacob Chen, MPH, Staff Researcher
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Hybrid work
Related website: https://champ.berkeley.edu/
Biological & Health Sciences Social Sciences