Disparities for Latino Children in the Timely Receipt of Medical Care
Section snippets
Design
The study was a cross-sectional cohort design employing data from the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). MEPS is a nationally representative survey of the United States civilian, noninstitutionalized population.19 The MEPS sampling frame is drawn from the National Health Interview Survey and oversamples racial/ethnic minorities and children with chronic medical conditions. Through the use of computer-assisted personal interviewing, MEPS is able to produce annual national estimates of
RESULTS
A total of 4120 children were included in the analysis. The average age of the included children was 8 years; 51% were male. The race/ethnicity of the sample population was 30% Latino, 53% white, and 17% African American. The weighted characteristics of the population are shown in Table 2. As expected, white children were more likely to have private insurance than Latino children, were more likely to have a nonhospital office as the site of care, were more likely to have parents who spoke
DISCUSSION
Our findings indicate that Latino children experience decreased quality of care compared with both white and African American children with respect to the timeliness of medical care, with the notable and consistent exception of illness or injury care. These disparities persist after adjustment for age, income, insurance status, and special health care needs. Most of the disparities for Latino children persisted after adjusting for parental interview language; the site of care for the child had
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Funded in part by a Young Investigator Grant from the Ambulatory Pediatric Association to Dr Brousseau.
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Presented in part at the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting, May 3, 2004, San Francisco, CA, and the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, June 7, 2004, San Diego, CA.