Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41191257›Full record

ArticleJournal of racial and ethnic health disparities2025

Patient-Provider Communication and Health Disparities: An Experiment Exploring Language Proficiency and Communication Accommodation.

Kathrin Rothermich, Rose P Baker-Iyore, Dai'Sha Dowson, Hannah Ragsdale, Elisha Eanes, Makyah McNeill, Mi Hwa Lee, Deeonna E Farr, Audrey Eaves, Joseph G L Lee and 1 more

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In one paragraph

Article in Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

11 authors.

Kathrin RothermichDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA. rothermichk17@ecu.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7586-3842
Rose P Baker-IyoreDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Dai'Sha DowsonDepartment of Addiction and Rehabilitation Studies, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Hannah RagsdaleDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Elisha EanesDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Makyah McNeillDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Mi Hwa LeeSchool of Social Work, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Deeonna E FarrDepartment of Health Education and Promotion, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Audrey EavesDepartment of Physician Assistant Studies, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27834, USA.
Joseph G L LeeDepartment of Implementation Science, Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC, 27101, USA.
Susan C BobbDepartment of Psychology, Gordon College, Wenham, MA, 01984, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Effective communication is critical for equitable healthcare delivery. In situations where there is language discordance between patients and providers, with one person speaking a shared language more proficiently, communication challenges may exacerbate disparities, particularly for racially or ethnically minoritized patients. Even when patients and providers are both fluent enough in English to not need interpretation, communication challenges intensify when patients are required to use their second language (L2) to interact with a native English (L1) speaking healthcare provider. Communication accommodation encompasses speech adjustments used to mitigate these barriers. Because communication accommodation strategies are not explicitly taught in healthcare training, it is unknown how healthcare providers adjust and the role a patient's English proficiency plays in guiding provider language choices. This experimental study tested how L1 physician assistant students modify their communication during intake interviews with Latine L2 avatar patients of varying English proficiency, using the mixed-reality simulation platform Mursion. Data from 41 physician assistant students in 2023-2024 were analyzed for acoustic (i.e., speech rate, pitch modulation) and lexical adjustments (i.e., word frequency, contextual diversity). Results revealed significant accommodations: students reduced their speech rate, narrowed their pitch range, and used higher-frequency vocabulary when interacting with lower-proficiency L2 avatars. The results demonstrate that communication accommodation occurs and could be a potential mechanism for the widening or narrowing of healthcare disparities in patient outcomes. Future work should consider identifying which accommodations improve patients' comprehension of medical advice and their relationships with healthcare providers.

Indexed as

Communication barriersCultural competencyHealthcare disparitiesLanguageSimulation training

Identifiers

PMID41191257

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.