Original articleHealth Care Access of Hispanic Young Adults in the United States
Section snippets
Methods
We analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for the years 1999–2002. Conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control, the NHIS uses a nationally representative sampling strategy to provide ongoing, cross-sectional data about the health and health care of the civilian noninstitutionalized U.S. population [27]. The NHIS oversamples the Hispanic U.S. population to improve the precision of health estimates and conducts surveys
Statistical Analyses
Population estimates and bivariate distributions of sociodemographic characteristics, health insurance status, and health care access and utilization measures are presented using weighted data from 5189 Hispanic young adults (stratified by national origin subgroup and U.S. citizenship) and 13,214 white non-Hispanic young adults. Four multiple logistic regression models were created to estimate the adjusted odds of reporting (1) no health insurance, (2) no usual source of care, (3) delayed or
Sociodemographic Characteristics
The Central/South American, Mexican (including Mexican American) and Puerto Rican respondents participating in the NHIS represent an estimated 5.7 million young adults and 14% of all 19–29-year-olds in the U.S. (Table 1). Hispanic young adults were less likely than non-Hispanic white peers to have attended college, more likely to be working at a job that did not offer health insurance, and more likely to live in a household with an income of less than $20,000. These findings were particularly
Discussion
A large body of literature details poor health care access among Hispanics in the United States, and an increasing number of studies demonstrates the poor health care access of young adults. This study examines the common ground of these two populations—Hispanic young adults in the U.S. As hypothesized, this study finds that Hispanic young adults in general have higher uninsurance rates and are more likely to lack a usual source of health care and report having no contact with a health
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