Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Commentary: Hispanic Access to Health/Mental Health Services

  • Commentary
  • Published:
Psychiatric Quarterly Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Currently, the Hispanic population of the United States is growing very rapidly. Despite the significance of this growth and the fact that it is expected that Hispanics will be soon the largest ethnic minority group in this country, the access to health/mental health care for the Hispanic population is rather limited. Many factors are currently affecting the Hispanics' access to health/mental health care services. Among them, cultural and language barriers, insufficient numbers of Hispanic manpower in the health care professions, low educational and socioeconomic levels, the high number of uninsured Hispanics, and ethnic and racial prejudices and discrimination. In this commentary, I address the factors that interfere with the Hispanics' access to health/mental health care, and advance recommendations geared to alleviate and/or resolve this critical problem.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

REFERENCES

  1. U.S. bureau of the census, 2000.

  2. Marcos LR, Urcuyo L, Kesselman M, et al: The language barrier in evaluating spanishamerican patients. Archives of General Psychiatry 29:655-659, 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Ruiz P: Cultural barriers to effective medical care among HispanicAmerican patients. Annual Review of Medicine 36:63-71, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Gomez R, Ruiz P, Rumbaut RD: Hispanic patients: A linguocultural minority. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 7:177-186, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Gonzalez CA, Griffith EEH, Ruiz P: Crosscultural issues in psychiatric treatment. In: Gabbard GO, ed., Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders, 2nd ed. Washington, D.C., American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1995.

  6. Ruiz P: Access to health care for uninsured Hispanics: Policy recommendations. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 44:958-962, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ruiz P: Pobreza y atencion medica: Problemas y perspectivas. Revista Medica Dominicana 58:36-39, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ruiz P, GarzaTrevino ES: El paciente Hispano y el sistema de salud medica y psiquiatrica: Problemas y perspectivas. Revista de Psiquiatria 2:5-6, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ruiz P, Venegas-Samuels K, Alarcon RD: The economics of pain: Mental health care costs among minorities. The Psychiatry Clinics of North America 18:659-670, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ruiz P, Alarcon RD: How culture and poverty exclude people from care. American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry 17:61-73, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Short PF, Cornelius LJ, Goldstone DE: Health insurance of minorities in the United States. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 1:9-24, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Trevino FM, Moyer E, Burciaga Valdes R, et al: Health insurance coverage and utilization of health services by Mexican Americans, mainland Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans. Journal of the American Medical Association 265:233-238, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Ruiz P: Puerto Ricans: A psychopolitical point of view. The American Journal of Social Psychiatry 4:21-24, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Marcos LR, Alpert M: Strategies and risks in psychotherapy with bilingual patients: The phenomenon of language independence. American Journal of Psychiatry 133:1275-1278, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Marcos LR: Effects of interpreters on the evaluation of psychopathology in nonenglishspeaking patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 136:171-174, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gomez EG, Ruiz P, Laval R: Psychotherapy and bilingualism: Is acculturation important? Journal of Operational Psychiatry 13:13-16, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Laval RA, Gomez EA, Ruiz P: A language minority: Hispanic Americans and mental health care. The American Journal of Social Psychiatry 3:42-49, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ruiz P: Folk healers as associate therapists: In Masserman JH, ed., Current Psychiatric Therapies, Vol. 16. New York, Grune &; Stratton, Inc., 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Ruiz P, Langrod J: Psychiatry and folk healing: A dichotomy? American Journal of Psychiatry 133:95-97, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Koss JD: Expectations and outcomes for patients given mental health care or spiritist healing in Puerto Rico. American Journal of Psychiatry 144:56-61, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Escobar JI: Crosscultural aspects of the somatization trait. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 38:174-180, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Canino IA, Rubio-Stipec M, Canino G, et al: Functional somatic symptoms: A crossethnic comparison. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 62:605-612, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Ruiz P: Spiritism, mental health, and the Puerto Ricans: An overview. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review XVI:28-43, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Ruiz P: The Hispanic patient: Sociocultural perspectives. In Becerra RM, Karno M, Escobar JI, ed., Mental Health and Hispanic Americans. New York, Grune &; Stratton, Inc., 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Norquist G, Wells K: Mental health needs of the uninsured. Archives of General Psychiatry 48:475-478, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Scheffler RM, Miller AB: Differences in mental health service utilization among ethnic subpopulations. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 14:363-376, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas Medical School, Houston

    Pedro Ruiz (Professor and Vice Chair)

Authors
  1. Pedro Ruiz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ruiz, P. Commentary: Hispanic Access to Health/Mental Health Services. Psychiatr Q 73, 85–91 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015051809607

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015051809607

Search

Navigation