Towne Samuel D C, Li Wei, Lee Chanam, Xu Minjie, Bian Jiahe, Whigham Leah D, Ory Marcia G
School of Global Health Management and Informatics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
Disability, Aging, and Technology Cluster, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
Healthcare (Basel). 2025 Sep 13;13(18):2295. doi: 10.3390/healthcare13182295.
Residents of the US-Mexico border face cost-related barriers in accessing necessary medical care. Given the potential for individualized or broader tailoring of solutions to reflect community needs, we sought to identify risk factors for being uninsured and forgoing necessary medical care due to cost among a largely Hispanic adult population residing along the US-Mexico border.
Surveys among adults in a major US-Mexico border area were used to investigate cost-related forgone medical care and lack of insurance. Binary Logit models were employed to model multiple binary outcomes informed by our theoretical frameworks.
Lower education, Hispanic ethnicity, being younger, lacking underlying illness and/or having obesity, forgoing medical care due to cost, and having lower income were associated with a higher likelihood of being uninsured; while being female, being younger, having underlying illness and/or having obesity (potential increased risk of severe illness due to COVID-19), lacking insurance, and having a lower income were risk factors for forgone medical care due to cost.
This study adds novel insight into existing health inequities facing those residing along the US-Mexico border region, thereby holding timely public health implications.
美墨边境地区的居民在获取必要医疗服务时面临与费用相关的障碍。鉴于有针对个体或更广泛地量身定制解决方案以反映社区需求的可能性，我们试图确定居住在美国-墨西哥边境的大部分西班牙裔成年人群体中未参保以及因费用问题而放弃必要医疗服务的风险因素。
在美国-墨西哥边境一个主要地区对成年人进行调查，以研究与费用相关的医疗服务放弃情况和保险缺失情况。采用二元逻辑回归模型对基于我们理论框架的多个二元结果进行建模。
受教育程度较低、西班牙裔种族、年龄较小、没有基础疾病和/或患有肥胖症、因费用问题放弃医疗服务以及收入较低与未参保的可能性较高相关；而女性、年龄较小、有基础疾病和/或患有肥胖症（因新冠病毒导致严重疾病的潜在风险增加）、没有保险以及收入较低是因费用问题放弃医疗服务的风险因素。
本研究为居住在美国-墨西哥边境地区的人们面临的现有健康不平等问题提供了新的见解，从而具有及时的公共卫生意义。
