G-2108-17163

Health Protection and Education Service (HPES) is a non-profit that offers preventative health services for underserved and underinsured individuals in St. Louis. The organization hosts free, drop-in screening services at the Washington University Medical School, where clients receive 1:1 consultation with a volunteer doctor and dentist, along with a referral to a low-cost primary care provider and dentist. HPES also provides multi-lingual health literacy materials to clients, and provides referrals to social services, medical legal services and more.

This investment, through the Executive Director’s Fund, would support recruiting and hiring 4 local interpreters (Chinese, Korean, and Spanish) to be present during medical and dental screenings. Interpreters will be hired locally from the community and will be trained in dental interpretation. HPES estimates that 75% of their patients speak a first language other than English, demonstrating the need for linguistically and culturally competent interpreters. This program includes longer term tracking of patients and referrals, and the interpreters will continue and be sustainable after the interpreters are trained and the grant term ends. The budget of $6,325 would go towards dental interpretation training and partial salary of the interpreters.