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Comparing immigration status and health patterns between Latinos and Asians: Evidence from the Survey of Income and Program Participation

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  • Annie Ro
  • Jennifer Van Hook

Abstract

Undocumented status is widely recognized as an important social determinant of health. While undocumented immigrants have lower levels of health care access, they do not have consistently poorer physical health than the US-born or other immigrant groups. Furthermore, heterogeneity by race/ethnicity has been largely ignored in this growing literature. This paper used the 2001, 2004, 2008 panels of the restricted Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), one of the only representative surveys equipped to adequately identify Asian undocumented immigrants, to compare health patterns between Asians and Latinos by immigration status. We examined three general measures of health/health access: self-rated health, disability, and current health insurance. Latino undocumented immigrants displayed some advantages in self-rated health and disability but had lower insurance coverage compared to US-born Latinos. In contrast, Asian undocumented immigrants did not differ from US-born Asians in any of the three outcomes. While undocumented status has been proposed as a fundamental cause of disease, we found no evidence that Latino and Asian undocumented immigrants consistently fare worse in health access or physical health outcomes than immigrants in other status categories. Different racial groups also appeared to have unique patterns between immigration status and health outcomes from one another.

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  • Annie Ro & Jennifer Van Hook, 2021. "Comparing immigration status and health patterns between Latinos and Asians: Evidence from the Survey of Income and Program Participation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-15, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0246239
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246239
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Matthew Hall & Emily Greenman, 2015. "The Occupational Cost of Being Illegal in the United States: Legal Status, Job Hazards, and Compensating Differentials," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(2), pages 406-442, June.
    2. Zai Liang & Bo Zhou, 2016. "The Effects of Legal Status on Employment and Health Outcomes among Low-Skilled Chinese Immigrants in New York City," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 666(1), pages 150-163, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Padilla, Tatiana & Reyes, Adriana, 2024. "Hitting closer to home: State policies’ impacts on health by race and legal status," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).

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