AMA Journal of Ethics^®

Dr Pilar Ortega joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Drs Glenn Martínez, Marco A. Alemán, Alejandra Zapién-Hidalgo, and Tiffany M. Shin: “Recognizing and Dismantling Raciolinguistic Hierarchies in Latinx Health.”

In US health care, language and linguistic difference are often conceived in discrete, instrumental, and monolithic terms.

This commentary considers a grocery worker reluctant to be tested for SARS-CoV-2 and treated for COVID-19 out of fear of losing his livelihood.

Underrepresentation of individuals with limited English proficiency who speak Spanish is ongoing in phase 3 biomedical clinical trials and exacerbates health inequity.

Limited language proficiency is a driver of health inequity and exacerbates other social determinants of health.