USC Somos Hermanos Student Immersion Program
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Mission Statement: Somos Hermanos aims to reduce the disparity in health
care access and quality that results when health care providers are unable
to effectively communicate with Latino patients due to language and cultural
barriers. The Student Immersion Program (SIP) seeks to address the
inadequacies of the current efforts to address these problems by increasing
the number of bilingual, culturally competent health care professionals. 

Program Description: Our students live in Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala
for 6 months. Through intensive Spanish courses, lecture series, socially
and culturally relevant volunteer projects, and weekly activities, our
students gain the language capability and cultural competency desperately
needed to serve marginalized, Spanish-speaking Latino populations. 

Brief Background of the Problem: Spanish is the primary language for 11% of
the US population and 44.5% of Los Angeles County residents. While Latin
Americans comprise the largest minority group in the US, they receive
disproportionately low access to lower quality health care. The National
Healthcare Disparities Report states that having "providers who meet the
needs of individual patients and with whom patients can develop a
relationship based on mutual communication and trust" is an essential
component of health care access - a component that is often not addressed
for Latinos in the US. In fact, language barriers and lack of cultural
understanding account for 37% of health care access problems, while the
inability to afford health care accounts for only 18% of access problems. 

Note: for more background information or articles pertaining to this topic,
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* California. California State Department of Transportation. Census Data:
Ethnicity by City. 2000. 18 Feb. 2006 
** National Healthcare Disparities Report. U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality,
2005. 

	

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Last updated: February, 2007 
This web page was coded by Michael Wach. For more information, visit
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