Project Summary
Latinos have the highest percentage of diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) for adults 18 and over in Ohio (13.2 percent) in comparison with 21.7 percent for Black non-Hispanics and 9.9 percent for White non-Hispanics. In the major population centers of the state, furthermore, the percentage is even greater. In Columbus, 13.4 percent of Latinos reported having DM2 and 37.5 percent of Latinos reported having a family member with DM2. In Cleveland, 19.3 percent reported to have DM2 and 48 percent reported a family member with DM2. In Cincinnati and Toledo, 16.7 percent and 18.8 percent reported having DM2 and 31 percent and 51.4 percent reported a family member with DM2, respectively. The A tu L.A.D.O. (Language Access for Diabetes in Ohio) project will continue developing a partnership to respond to the disproportionate burden of DM2 in Ohio’s Spanish-speaking communities. We will continue to build capacity for patient-centered comparative effectiveness research on language access for patients with diabetes by extending our partnership beyond the central Ohio area into other areas of the state with significant populations of Spanish-speaking patients (Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Toledo). We will scan the environment across the state to identify comparators in diabetes care for Spanish speakers that adopt an expanded role for interpreters, match Spanish-speaking patients to bilingual providers, and engage patients in family-based interventions. We will then formulate comparative effectiveness research questions to address the challenges faced by Spanish speakers with DM2.