Latino Health

The Latino population is growing rapidly in Wake and Johnston Counties. In the face of this rapidly growing population, there is a lack of linguistically and culturally competent care in the community.  These trends may limit access to primary care, threaten quality of care, lead to increased cost of care and may contribute to health disparities within our community.   
Studies have found that patients who encounter language and cultural barriers in health care settings tend to utilize less primary care, receive less preventive care, experience higher rates of hospitalization, encounter more medication errors and complications,  and may have more delayed diagnoses than patients who do not encounter such barriers.
Through our network activities, we aim to provide resources and tools to patients and practices to help build capacity for care.  

Resources
Latino Health Coalition
Latino Resource Pamphlet
Latino Names
Wake County Bicultural Resources
Bilingual Health Professional Job link website
Substance Abuse Spanish Services
Mental Health Spanish Services

Spanish Capacity Building Initiative
Su Hogar Médico
This program, supported by a grant through the John Rex Endowment program, is a pilot to develop the Spanish linguistic and cultural capacity in primary care offices. The grant funds will be used to support the hiring of practice liaisons for primary care practices.  The liaisons will serve as interpreters while the practices are building their internal bilingual capacity as well as foster system change within the practice and create links to community resources external to the practices.  In addition, the program will seek to connect qualified bilingual office staff to practices through a web based job link.  The program will also seek to identify and support qualified bilingual students as they complete Medical Assistant and Certified Nurse Assistant training and then facilitate placement of graduates into practices.  Further, the grant funds will be used to provide other resources to practices and support cultural competency training for practice staff.  Finally, families will be supported as they are learning English and acculturating to the US Health Care system.

For further information and if your practice is interested in participating with Su Hogar Médico, please contact Patty Myrick RN BSN at pmyrick@wakedocs.org or 550-1872.