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Abstract Effective communication is critical for equitable healthcare delivery. In situations where there is language discordance between patients and providers, with one person speaking a shared language more proficiently, communication challenges may exacerbate disparities, particularly for racially or ethnically minoritized patients. Even when patients and providers are both fluent enough in English to not need interpretation, communication challenges intensify when patients are required to use their second language (L2) to interact with a native English (L1) speaking healthcare provider. Communication accommodation encompasses speech adjustments used to mitigate these barriers. Because communication accommodation strategies are not explicitly taught in healthcare training, it is unknown how healthcare providers adjust and the role a patient’s English proficiency plays in guiding provider language choices. This experimental study tested how L1 physician assistant students modify their communication during intake interviews with Latine L2 avatar patients of varying English proficiency, using the mixed-reality simulation platform Mursion. Data from 41 physician assistant students in 2023–2024 were analyzed for acoustic (i.e., speech rate, pitch modulation) and lexical adjustments (i.e., word frequency, contextual diversity). Results revealed significant accommodations: students reduced their speech rate, narrowed their pitch range, and used higher-frequency vocabulary when interacting with lower-proficiency L2 avatars. The results demonstrate that communication accommodation occurs and could be a potential mechanism for the widening or narrowing of healthcare disparities in patient outcomes. Future work should consider identifying which accommodations improve patients’ comprehension of medical advice and their relationships with healthcare providers. 

Three copper redox shuttles ([Cu( 1 )] 2+/1+ , [Cu( 2 )] 2+/1+ , and [Cu( 3 )] 2+/1+ ) featuring tetradentate ligands were synthesized and evaluated computationally, electrochemically, and in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) devices using a benchmark organic dye, Y123 . Neutral polyaromatic ligands with limited flexibility were targeted as a strategy to improve solar-to-electrical energy conversion by reducing voltage losses associated with redox shuttle electron transfer events. Inner-sphere electron transfer reorganization energies ( λ ) were computed quantum chemically and compared to the commonly used [Co(bpy) 3 ] 3+/2+ redox shuttle which has a reported λ value of 0.61 eV. The geometrically constrained biphenyl-based Cu redox shuttles investigated here have lower reorganization energies (0.34–0.53 eV) and thus can potentially operate with lower driving forces for dye regeneration (Δ G reg ) in DSC devices when compared to [Co(bpy) 3 ] 3+/2+ -based devices. The rigid tetradentate ligand design promotes more efficient electron transfer reactions leading to an improved J SC (14.1 mA cm −2 ), higher stability due to the chelate effect, and a decrease in V lossOC for one of the copper redox shuttle-based devices.