Health status and health services access and utilization among Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese children in California.

OBJECTIVES

We examined health status and health services access and utilization of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, Vietnamese, and non-Hispanic White children in California.

METHODS

We analyzed aggregated data from the 2003 and 2005 California Health Interview Survey (648 Chinese, 523 Filipino, 235 Japanese, 308 Korean, 314 South Asian, 264 Vietnamese, and 8468 non-Hispanic White children aged younger than 12 years), examining the relationship between Asian ethnicities and outcomes.

RESULTS

Compared with non-Hispanic White children, Korean children were 4 times more likely to lack health insurance; Filipino children were twice as likely to not have had recent contact with a doctor; Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese children were less likely to have visited an emergency room in the past year; and Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese children were more likely to be in fair or poor health. Age, gender, poverty, citizenship-nativity status, health insurance, and parental marital and child health statuses were related to most outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Asian ethnicities have heterogeneous health care access and utilization patterns, suggesting the need for targeted outreach to different Asian ethnic groups.