A Deep Dive into Immigrant Children’s Health

How can we improve the health of immigrant children? The first step may be changing the question. Recent research highlights the diverse ways an immigrant parent’s demographics correlate with the likelihood his or her child receives healthcare services.

The study, published last year in the American Economic Review, both confirmed existing beliefs about immigrant children’s health and provided new insight into the various ways characteristics of parents correlate with children’s health. The study compared measures of health of first- and second-generation immigrant children with children of US-born parents. The different measures of health included were designed to measure access and use of the healthcare system as well as perception of health: a visit to the doctor in the past year, having a usual place of care, and perceived health level.

Parental place of birth, citizenship status, and race all were shown to correlate significantly with the child’s use of the health system. Often groups with the higher perceived health were less likely to use or have access to the health system. While generally immigrant children had less access to the healthcare system than their non-immigrant counterparts, these trends vary when more specific demographic groups are studied.

The health measures of first- and second-generation immigrant children varied significantly from American children with native-born parents. As expected, immigrant children were less likely to have visited the doctor in the past year or have a regular place for health care. They were more likely to be perceived as healthy by their parents. The difference in likelihoods compared with non-immigrant children was greater for non-citizen immigrant children than citizen immigrant children.

Immigrant children’s health also varied with race. Generally, Asian and white immigrant children had less access and use of the healthcare system than their native counterparts. The trend was the opposite for Hispanic immigrant children. They were more likely to access and use the healthcare system than their native counterparts. Asian children were both the least likely to have met the measures of access and use, and more likely than white children to be to be perceived by their parents as healthy. Results such as these suggest that culture norms may impact perceived health and use of the healthcare system.

Drilling further into the data, the study next looked at the parental region of birth. Children of parents born in Latin America and Asia were significantly less likely to have visited a doctor or have a routine place of care. Citizen children of these groups had higher probabilities of care than non-citizen children. Citizen children of parents born in Africa were less likely to have visited a doctor recently. Non-citizen children of parents born in Africa were less likely to have a routine place of care.

Although children of parents from Latin America, Asia, and Africa generally fared worse on the measures of access and use of the health system than children of US-born parents, they generally had a higher level of perceived health (the exception being citizen children of Latin American parents). This result suggests, again, that cultural norms may play a role in determining healthcare access for children. Parents who perceive their children as healthier may be less likely to seek out healthcare services for those children.

The outliers in this analysis were citizen children of parents from the Middle East. These children are significantly more likely to have visited a doctor in the past year and to have a regular place of care than non-immigrant children. They were also more likely to be perceived as healthy.

While providing a deep dive into the characteristics of immigrant parents and their children, this study makes no suggestion of causality. If we seek to help the health of immigrant children, the next step is to investigate further. We need to know not just that there are discrepancies between groups, but exactly why. Monica Garcia-Perez’s research provides not an answer but a launching point for further conversation.

Article Source: Health Care Usage and Health Status of Immigrant Children: The Effects of Nativity versus Citizenship, Mónica García-Pérez, American Economic Review, 2013.

Feature Photo: cc/(Myfuture.com)