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The Role of Clinics in Determining Older Recent Immigrants’ Use of Health Services

Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health volume 20, pages 1468–1475 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Immigrants are ineligible for federally-funded Medicaid in the U.S. until at least 5 years after arrival. There is little information on where they receive care in light of this restriction. Using Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition, this study examines whether the setting in which older recent immigrants receive care (i.e., health clinic, emergency room or doctor’s office) explains delays in care. Among older adults with a usual source of care, 13.5% of recent immigrants had not seen a health professional in the past year compared to 8.6% of non-recent immigrants and 6.3% of native-born. Approximately 23% of these differences is attributable to recent immigrants’ tendency to receive care in clinics and community health centers. Even when older recent immigrants manage to find a usual source of care, it is of lower quality than that received by their non-recent immigrant and native-born counterparts.

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Funding

This study was funded by a pilot grant from the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health (no grant number) [to Alma Vega] and the National Institute on Aging (P01AG022481) [to Emma Aguila].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kaiser Permanente, Regional Utilization Management, 393 E. Walnut Street, Pasadena, CA, 91188, USA

    Alma Vega

  2. Department of Health Policy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Thalia Porteny

  3. Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Emma Aguila

Authors
  1. Alma Vega
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  2. Thalia Porteny
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  3. Emma Aguila
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alma Vega.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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The Institutional Review Board at the authors’ home institution exempted this research from review.

Research Involving Human and Animal Participants

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by

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Vega, A., Porteny, T. & Aguila, E. The Role of Clinics in Determining Older Recent Immigrants’ Use of Health Services. J Immigrant Minority Health 20, 1468–1475 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0693-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0693-x

Keywords

  • Clinics
  • Migration
  • Health policy
  • Aging