In order to provide adequate healthcare to ethnic minority patients, healthcare professionals must use professional interpreter services to effectively overcome language barriers. Many ethnic minority patients have low health literacy, i.e. they have difficulty obtaining, understanding and implementing health information. They therefore have a higher risk of poorer health outcomes. Health care professionals need to adapt their communication to patients with low health literacy by checking whether the patient has understood them, avoiding use of medical jargon and tailoring information to the patient's perspective. Various practical strategies have been developed to support health care professionals to communicate effectively with patients with low health literacy. Scientific research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of such strategies in various populations and to systematically develop, implement and evaluate new strategies.