Association of Maternal-Clinician Ethnic Concordance With Latinx Youth Receipt of Family-Centered Care

IMPORTANCE: Disparities in medical home provisions, including receipt of family-centered care (FCC), have persisted for Latinx youths in the US. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between maternal-clinician ethnic concordance and receipt of FCC among US-born Latinx youths. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A cross-sectional secondary analysis of data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2017, was conducted. Data analysis was performed from January 6 to February 3, 2020. Latinx youths (age, ≤17 years) born in the US who had a usual source of care and used care in the past year, their Latina mothers (age, 18-64 years), and youths’ health care clinician characteristics (eg, race, ethnicity, and sex) were evaluated using χ(2) tests and propensity-score matching methods. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Maternal reports on whether their youths’ clinician listened carefully to the parent, explained things in a way the parent could understand, showed respect, and spent enough time with the patient. RESULTS: There were 2515 US-born Latinx youths with linked maternal characteristics during the study period; 51.67% (95% CI, 48.87%-54.45%) of the youths were male, mean (SD) age was 8.48 (0.17) years (30.86% [95% CI, 28.39%-33.44%] were between ages 5 and 9 years), 61.53% (95% CI, 57.15%-65.74%) had public insurance coverage, and 39.89% (95% CI, 32.33%-47.89%) had mothers who were ethnically concordant with the youths’ medical care clinician. We found that for youths with maternal-clinician ethnic concordance, the probabilities of reporting FCC were significantly higher than they would have been in the absence of concordance: that the medical care clinician listened carefully to the parent (average treatment effect on the treated [ATET], 5.44%; 95% CI, 2.14%-8.74%), explained things in a way the parent could understand (ATET, 4.82%; 95% CI, 1.60%-8.03%), showed respect for what the parent had to say (ATET, 5.51%; 95% CI, 2.58%-8.45%), and spent enough time with the patient (ATET, 5.28%; 95% CI, 1.68%-8.88%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Given the increase of Latinx populations and the simultaneous shortage of underrepresented minority health care clinicians, the findings of this study suggest that increasing the number of clinicians from underrepresented minority backgrounds and ethnic-concordant parental-clinician relationships may help reduce disparities in receipt of medical home provision among US-born Latinx youths.