About 10 percent of adults in the United States have limited fluency in English, leading to a myriad of health-related challenges. And while professional interpreters help, Adriana Suarez-Ligon tells Rutgers Today, nothing beats having a doctor who speaks your language.
A surgical oncologist with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Suarez-Ligon is gathering data on the disparities Latinx women face when accessing preventative care and treatments. Latinx and black women fail to receive therapy for curable breast cancers more often than Caucasian women, and the problem gets more severe as the women age.
“We’re collecting as much information as we can on minorities, so we can do something significant for these patients,” she says. She is proud of being part of a team at NJMS where community outreach is important – from offering free breast cancer screenings to collaborating with University Hospital to providing a Students Health Science Day for Newark’s Park Elementary School students and their families.
Read the full story in Rutgers Today.