Latino health in Los Angeles: family medicine in a changing minority context.

The inner city population of the Los Angeles county has rapidly become largely Latino. The 3.3 million Latinos living in the county in 1990 had much higher poverty rates and lower educational attainment rates than Anglo (non-Hispanic white) or blacks. The health indicators of the three groups are compared for 1990. In birth outcome, although Latinos were the least likely to receive care in the first trimester, Latinos and Anglos had identical rates of low birth weight babies, and lower rates than blacks. Latino infant mortality was the lowest of the three. The age-adjusted death rates showed that Latinos have a lower overall death rate than Anglos or blacks, and lower specific rates for heart disease, cancer, AIDS and stroke. Latinos did have higher death rates than Anglos for accidents, homicides, cirrhosis and diabetes. Latinos had incidence rates of gonorrhoea and syphilis similar to Anglos and lower than blacks. The communicable disease rates for Latinos was many times higher than Anglos or blacks, including those for measles, shigellosis, giardiasis and hepatitis A. Implications for family medicine are discussed.