3.4.0.0 Lan­guage Bar­ri­ers

Pro­viders who care for non-‍En­glish speak­ers should de­vel­op or offer ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grams and ma­te­ri­als in mul­ti­ple lan­guages with the specific goals of pre­vent­ing di­a­betes and build­ing di­a­betes aware­ness in peo­ple who can­not eas­i­ly read or write in En­glish. The Na­tion­al Stan­dards for Cul­tu­ral­ly and Lin­guis­ti­cal­ly Ap­pro­pri­ate Ser­vices in Health and Health Care pro­vide guid­ance on how health care pro­viders can re­duce lan­guage bar­ri­ers by im­prov­ing their cul­tural com­pe­ten­cy, ad­dress­ing health lit­er­acy, and en­sur­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with lan­guage as­sis­tance (76). The site of­fers a num­ber of re­sources and ma­te­ri­als that can be used to im­prove the qual­i­ty of care de­liv­ery to non-‍En­glish–speak­ing pa­tients.