“It’s a common misperception that undocumented immigrants overuse medical services and rely primarily on hospital emergency rooms for care,” said UCI anthropologist Leo Chavez, author of the study. “Despite what we hear in the public debate, there is not a great deal of social science data on healthcare for undocumented immigrants.”
The study found that 89.3 percent of non-Latino white survey respondents had accessed medical services in 2005, compared to 68.8 percent of all Latinos and 54.8 percent of undocumented Latino immigrants. The type of care sought varied, with undocumented immigrants more apt to utilize hospital outpatient clinics, health centers and public health clinics, while legal immigrants and citizens – both Latino and white – frequented private doctors’ offices at a higher rate.
This contrast, said Chavez, is tied to health coverage. “Latinos with medical insurance were 2.27 times as likely as those without it to seek medical care,” he said. “As a whole, legal immigrants and citizens were 72 percent more likely than undocumented Latinos to seek medical care.”
The findings are significant, Chavez noted, as underutilization of medical services is associated with poorer health and higher mortality rates. “Healthcare for undocumented immigrants has become so politicized that current healthcare reforms explicitly exclude them,” he said. “The reality is that they face great obstacles to obtaining healthcare, and it’s not clear at this point what will happen to them as a result of reforms.”
Source: UC Irvine News, “Undocumented immigrants in O.C. use fewer health services than rest of population,” October 13, 2011.