Minority Health and Health Equity Archive
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21769
Welcome to the Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA), an electronic archive for digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy. It is offered as a no-charge resource to the public, academic scholars and health science researchers interested in the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.
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Item The Contribution of Insurance Coverage and Community Resources to Reducing Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Access to Care(2003) Hargraves, J. Lee; Hadley, JackAbstract available at publisher's web site.Item Community Demographics and Access to Health Care among U.S. Hispanics(2009) Gresenz, Carole Roan; Rogowski, Jeannette; Escarce, José J.OBJECTIVE: To explore the influence of the communities in which Hispanics live on their access to health care. DATA: 1996-2002 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data, linked to secondary data sources and including 14,504 observations from 8,371 Mexican American respondents living in metropolitan areas. STUDY DESIGN: We use multivariate probit regression models, stratified by individuals' insurance status, for analyses of four dependent variables measuring access to health care. We measure community characteristics at the zip code tabulation area level, and key independent variables of interest are the percentage of the population that speaks Spanish and percentage of the population that is immigrant Hispanic. Each of these measures is interacted with individual-level measures of nativity and length of U.S. residency. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: For Mexican American immigrants, living in an area populated by relatively more Spanish speakers or more Hispanic immigrants is associated with better access to care. The associations are generally stronger for more recent immigrants compared with those who are better established. Among U.S.-born Mexican Americans who are uninsured, living in areas more heavily populated with Spanish-speaking immigrants is negatively associated with access to care. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that characteristics of the local population, including language and nativity, play an important role in access to health care among U.S. Hispanics, and point to the need for further study, including analyses of other racial and ethnic groups, using different geographic constructs for describing the local population, and, to the extent possible, more specific exploration of the mechanisms through which these characteristics may influence access to care.Item Does Race Matter? Access and Service use for Children by Race during 2002(Allegheny HelathChoices, Inc., 2006) UNSPECIFIEDExecutive Summary The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health and the supplemental report on Race, Culture and Ethnicity summarized national research on mental health and the treatment of mental disorders. These reports concluded that minorities were much less likely than Caucasians to access behavioral health care and receive high quality treatment, even though minorities and Caucasians have similar rates of mental disorders. These national reports provide the context for Allegheny HealthChoices, Inc.’s (AHCI) analysis of racial disparities in behavioral health services. In 2003, AHCI reported that African-American children and youth enrolled in HealthChoices during 2002 accessed behavioral health services at lower rates than Caucasians. AHCI developed this current report to further explore access and service use patterns by race for children and youth.