Health Care Utilization, Family Context, and Adaptation Among Immigrants to the United States

• Published in: Journal of health and social behavior Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 370 - 384
• Main Authors: Leclere, Felicia B., Jensen, Leif, Biddlecom, Ann E.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Sociological Association 01-12-1994
• Subjects: Access to Health Care; Acculturation; Adaptation; Adjustment; Adult; Adults; Aged; Biological and medical sciences; Chronic diseases; Comparison; Cultural Differences; Demography; Diseases; Economic Impact; Educational Attainment; Emigration and Immigration - statistics & numerical data; Family; Family Characteristics; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health care; Health Care Utilization; Health Insurance; Health Services; Health Services - utilization; Hispanics; Households; Humans; Immigrants; Immigration; Male; Medicaid; Medical Services; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; Models, Psychological; National Surveys; Patient care; Physical Health; Physicians; Psychology and medicine; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Relationship; Social Adjustment; Social Background; Social Behavior; Social Environment; Social research; Social Services; Socioeconomic Factors; United States; United States of America; USA; Use; United States; North America; America; United States > US; Human; Health system; Acculturation; Use; Immigration; Family environment; Social adjustment; Health service; Public health; User need
• ISSN: 0022-1465; 2150-6000
• DOI: 10.2307/2137215

We use the 1990 National Health Interview Survey supplement on Family Resources to examine the health care utilization patterns of immigrant and native-born adults in the United States. We modify a standard health care utilization framework by including duration of residence in the United States and measures of immigrant adaptation and family health context to model both the probability and number of physician contacts in the previous year. We find that duration of residence has a strong effect. Recently-arrived immigrants are much less likely to have had a contact in the previous year and had fewer contacts than either native-born or longer-term immigrant adults. Once the measures of adaptation-age at immigration and language of survey interview-are included, immigrants who have been in the United States for 10 years or more are not statistically different from the native-born. Family characteristics, including measures of exposure to the formal health care system, slightly reduce the size of the effects but do not alter the basic relationship between duration of residence and health care utilization. These results suggest that, net of socioeconomic characteristics, access to health insurance, and differences in morbidity, recent immigrants are much less likely than both the native-born and those immigrants of longer duration, to receive timely health care.