Comparing immigration status and health patterns between Latinos and Asians: Evidence from the Survey of Income and Program Participation

Annie Ro,Jennifer Van Hook,Astrid M Kamperman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0246239

Annie Ro, Jennifer Van Hook + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246239

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Abstract

Undocumented status is widely recognized as an important social determinant of health. While undocumented immigrants have lower levels of health care access, they do not have consistently poorer physical health than the US-born or other immigrant groups. Furthermore, heterogeneity by race/ethnicity has been largely ignored in this growing literature. This paper used the 2001, 2004, 2008 panels of the restricted Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), one of the only representative surveys equipped to adequately identify Asian undocumented immigrants, to compare health patterns between Asians and Latinos by immigration status. We examined three general measures of health/health access: self-rated health, disability, and current health insurance. Latino undocumented immigrants displayed some advantages in self-rated health and disability but had lower insurance coverage compared to US-born Latinos. In contrast, Asian undocumented immigrants did not differ from US-born Asians in any of the three outcomes. While undocumented status has been proposed as a fundamental cause of disease, we found no evidence that Latino and Asian undocumented immigrants consistently fare worse in health access or physical health outcomes than immigrants in other status categories. Different racial groups also appeared to have unique patterns between immigration status and health outcomes from one another.

Highlights

Scholars are increasingly interested in how immigration status affects the life circumstances and subsequent health outcomes of the roughly 10.6 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States
Undocumented Asians had the smallest proportion of employed individuals at 61% and the lowest income to poverty ratio compared to all other immigrant groups
Undocumented status is perceived as a critical factor that determines life circumstances, but physical health disadvantages among undocumented immigrants have not been consistently established in the extant literature

Summary

Introduction

Scholars are increasingly interested in how immigration status affects the life circumstances and subsequent health outcomes of the roughly 10.6 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Undocumented status has been described as a fundamental cause of disease that produces poorer health outcomes among undocumented immigrants compared to other groups [1]. Data are available from the US Census RDCs for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data. The primary point of contact for each Federal Statistical Research Data Center is the Census Bureau employee who administers each location on behalf of all of the partner statistical agencies and RDC partner institutions. See this website for contact information for a specific RDC: https://www. We received access as an approved project in the RDC

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