Abstract
Korean immigrants in the United States (U.S.) are known for their preference for, and dependence on, co-ethnic doctors due to various barriers to the U.S. healthcare system. Recent immigrants tend to face more barriers than their non-recent counterparts. However, there is little information on how they find their doctors in the U.S. This study includes a self-administrated survey of Korean immigrants aged 18 and above who lived in the New York–New Jersey Metropolitan area in 2013–2014 (n = 440). Descriptive analysis was conducted to understand the most common information sources and the number of sources based on the duration of stay in the U.S. More recent Korean immigrants were female, had no family doctor, uninsured, younger, and more educated than their non-recent counterparts. Regardless of the duration of stay in the U.S., family members and friends were the most frequently sought-after sources for Korean immigrants in their search for doctors. In addition to family members and friends, non-recent Korean immigrants also used other methods (e.g., Korean business directories), whereas recent immigrants used both U.S. and Korean websites. More recent Korean immigrants used multiple sources compared to non-recent Korean immigrants, often combined with a Korean website. Our study suggests policy implications to improve recent immigrants’ accessibility to health information in a timely manner.
Highlights
When immigrants leave their home country, they leave their doctors; this implies the search for a new doctor upon arriving in the destination country
The current study is one of the first studies to investigate Korean immigrants’ health information-seeking behavior by descriptively highlighting the information sources Korean immigrants use to search for doctors in the U.S We found that family members and friends were the most frequently used sources, regardless of the duration of stay in the U.S This finding is in line with an earlier study that found family members and friends to be the most used sources for seeking health information among Korean immigrants, primarily due to language support, cultural cohesion, and strong trust in their closest interpersonal sources [20,21]
In addition to family members and friends, we found that Korean immigrants used co-workers, U.S and Korean websites, church members, and other sources
Summary
When immigrants leave their home country, they leave their doctors; this implies the search for a new doctor upon arriving in the destination country. Non-recent immigrants may be obliged to find new doctors if they are not satisfied with the treatment offered by their current doctor, or if their current doctor is no longer available Both recent and non-recent immigrants tend to prefer co-ethnic doctors, who share the same language and culture of their home country, as they often face challenges navigating the U.S healthcare system, due to language barriers and cultural differences [1,2]. Korean immigrants are one of the most rapidly increasing ethnic minority groups and the fifthlargest Asian group in the United States (U.S.) [7,8] They prefer, and are likely to see, co-ethnic doctors, mainly due to their uninsured status, language barriers, cultural differences, and limited knowledge of Western medicine [1,9,10]. Recent Korean immigrants have a higher likelihood of seeking healthcare from their ethnic community to help navigate the U.S healthcare
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