By George Lewis

With the elimination of language barriers a priority, personnel from those coalitions will go to Morelia, Mexico for an intensive immersion course in Spanish. Patients and health care providers say language barriers make it harder to fully explain symptoms, ask questions and fill prescriptions.

March 6, 2002 (Lexington, Ky.) -- The University of Kentucky, in partnership with the University of Tennessee and Kentucky State University, has received support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish a model program to improve access to health care for Spanish-speaking Latinos in Kentucky and Tennessee.

The universities will receive $538,000 over four years to run the program in Montgomery and Shelby counties in Kentucky and in Coffee and Bedford counties in Tennessee. Those counties have seen fast growth in Latino populations, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Program administrators will help form and maintain coalitions of health care professionals and community leaders, provide training on cultural diversity and help the counties get additional grants that will be used to provide quality health care.

With the elimination of language barriers a priority, personnel from those coalitions will go to Morelia, Mexico for an intensive immersion course in Spanish. Patients and health care providers say language barriers make it harder to fully explain symptoms, ask questions and fill prescriptions.

At UK, the program will be administered by the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention, which is within the College of Medicine, and the College of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service.