Implications of Spanish interviews in health surveys as collected in the United States: The case of Self-Reported Health

Abstract

This is an original investigation of self-reported health status among Hispanic adults from 1997 to 2018 in the United States (US). Previous research has shown there is a widening gap in poor/fair self-reported health between Hispanics who answer health surveys in English and those who answer in Spanish that cannot be explained by demographic/socioeconomic characteristics, assimilation or region of residence. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey (1997–2018), this study explores the patterns underlying the recent increase in self-reported health among Hispanic adults in the United States by estimating the percent of the population reporting poor/fair health status by language of interview and place of birth. Central to this study is the use of ‘regular’ as a translation to “fair” which has been poised to be a non-equivalent translation. This investigation reveals that the increase is highly concentrated among non-US born Hispanic adults who answer health surveys in Spanish with increase in reports of “regular” health status driving this trend. The results presented in this short communication underscore the importance of language of interview when collecting key measures of health often employed to study health disparities.