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Access to Preventive Services for Adults of Mexican Origin

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Abstract

Immigrants arrive in the U.S. with better than average health, which declines over time. Clinical preventive services can prevent or delay some of that decline, but little research in this area focuses specifically on Mexican immigrants who are the largest contemporary immigrant group. This article finds that recent Mexican immigrants were the least likely to receive preventive care services, even after adjusting for sociodemographic differences in the population. Long-stay Mexican immigrants were more similar to U.S.-born Mexican Americans in preventive service use rates, who in turn had lower rates than U.S.-born non-Latino whites. Monolingual Spanish speaking Mexican immigrants were the least likely to have obtained preventive services. Having no usual source of care is the strongest predictor of the underuse. The persistent gap in preventive services across all subgroups of adults of Mexican origin suggests structural barriers to their preventive care.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the California-Mexico Health Initiative of the University of California, Office of the President and NIA Grant P30-AG21684.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, School of Public Health, University of California, 10960 Wilshire Blvd. #1550, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA

    Steven P. Wallace

  2. Department of Community Outreach, St. Joseph Health System, Orange, CA, USA

    Verónica F. Gutiérrez

  3. Health Initiative of the Americas, California Policy Research Center, University of California Office of the President, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Xóchitl Castañeda

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  1. Steven P. Wallace
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  2. Verónica F. Gutiérrez
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  3. Xóchitl Castañeda
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Correspondence to Steven P. Wallace.

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Wallace, S.P., Gutiérrez, V.F. & Castañeda, X. Access to Preventive Services for Adults of Mexican Origin. J Immigrant Minority Health 10, 363–371 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-007-9093-3

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