Access to Healthcare for the Hispanic/Latino Population

Background: The U.S. Hispanic/Latino population faces significant barriers to accessing healthcare. The most common barriers Latinos face are language barriers, cost barriers, immigration statuses, insurance coverage barriers, transportation barriers, health literacy and education barriers, as well as lack of access to healthcare providers. These barriers impact not only their ability to access healthcare but also the quality of healthcare they receive. Purpose: To synthesize the existing literature evaluating that identifies barriers to healthcare. Methods: CINAHL and PubMed were systematically searched, along with a manual internet search for journal articles that studied access to care issues for the Latino population in the United States, barriers to care from the subject perspective and, thereby, to recommend interventions as an outcome of care. Results: When compared with their non-Hispanic White counterparts, it was found that the Hispanic/Latino population faced more barriers and had lower levels of access to care. Discrimination was a barrier that both providers and participants of studies thought was one of the most harmful barriers, this was an unexpected finding. Conclusion: Despite the varied focus of the articles selected there was adequate support of diminished care for this population due to 1) lack of education, 2) immigration status, 3) lack of money to pay for care, 4) transportation, 5) discrimination, 6) insurance coverage issues, 7) lack of health literacy or health education, and 8) lack of providers that are accessible. There are multiple barriers that the Hispanic/Latino population faces when accessing healthcare. The articles support the seriousness of the disparities in health care citing a high incidence of cancer, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease in this population