Vaccination Rates Among Patients Age 65 Years and Older Who Require Interpreter Services in 1 US State

• Published in: Journal of community health 2020-10, Vol.46 (4), p.703-710
• Main Authors: De la Garza, Maria Mendoza, Quigg, Stephanie M., De Lorenzo, Silvana B., Schroeder, Darrell R., Takahashi, Paul Y.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0094-5145; 1573-3610
• DOI: 10.1007/s10900-020-00927-4

In the United States, the growing population of older adults with limited English language proficiency (LEP) faces profound health care disparities. Previous research on vaccination of older adults has been based on self-reported data, without clinical verification. We compared pneumococcal vaccination rates between a patient group with LEP and a group of English speakers in an older community-dwelling population. A population-nested matched cohort of participants age 65 years and older was identified in the state. Patients with LEP were identified through an electronic alert within the electronic health record, designed to determine the need for an interpreter. Patients were matched 1 to 1 for age, sex, and Charlson comorbidity index. We used conditional logistic regression for the final analysis. In total, 24,052 patients were identified as older patients (mean [SD] age, 74 [7] years). Of them, 617 patients (2.6%) had LEP. The most common primary languages were Somali (24%), Vietnamese (15%), and Spanish (13%). We found lower rates of vaccination with 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in the LEP group compared with English speakers (62% vs 77%; odds ratio [OR] [95% CI], 2.07 [1.61–2.66]; P