Rethinking the way we measure access to language-concordant health services for minority language populations: a secondary analysis of publicly available physician and population data in Ontario, Canada.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Providing care in a patient's preferred language improves health outcomes and patient satisfaction. In Ontario, access to French-speaking physicians (FSPs) is estimated using FSP-to-Francophone population ratios and compared with total physician-to-total population ratios. This approach fails to consider the fact that FSPs also serve non-Francophone patients and that Francophones must compete with the entire population to access FSPs. As a result, this approach inaccurately suggests that Francophones have better access to language-concordant care than Anglophones/Allophones. We propose a novel approach to address this issue, enabling unbiased comparisons of access to language-concordant care across linguistic groups.

Design

This secondary analysis of publicly avail

SUBMITTER: Timony PE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12530374 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature