Health disparities by race and ethnicity

The Center for American Progress has prepared a fact sheet about health disparities in America based on various nationwide reports. 

The document indicates that being uninsured often means postponing needed health care services, and that is one of the reasons why people of color are often diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and once diagnosed, they receive poorer care. Nearly half (46 percent) of nonelderly black adults and more than a third (35 percent) of nonelderly Hispanic adults who do not have insurance report having one or more chronic health conditions. Many more of these Americans do not have a usual source for health care, have substantially higher unmet health needs than their insured counterparts, and have high out-of-pocket costs.  

Here are some of the key findings:

• Sixty-eight percent of Hispanics had health insurance coverage in 2009 compared to 88 percent of white Americans. Thirty percent of nonelderly uninsured Hispanics report having chronic health conditions. Close to a third of Hispanics lack a usual source of health care and 46 percent of uninsured Hispanics, who report having chronic health conditions, lack regular care.
• Ten percent of Hispanics of all ages report they are in fair or poor health.
• A total of 37.9 percent of Latinos age 20 and over were obese in 2008. Obesity rates were higher in women (43 percent) than men (34.3 percent).
• Fourteen percent of Hispanics have been diagnosed with diabetes compared with 8 percent of whites. They have higher rates of end-stage renal disease, caused by diabetes, and they are 50 percent more likely to die from diabetes than non-Hispanic whites.
• Hispanic women contract cervical cancer at twice the rate of white women. One in five Latinos report not seeking medical care due to language barriers. Leading causes of death among this group are heart disease, cancer and accidents. 
• For reasons that are not clearly understood, Hispanics live longer than other Americans and have lower rates of infant mortality.  

Source: The Center for American Progress, “Fact Sheet: Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity”, December 16, 2010.