College of Public Health Alumni Publish on Uninsurance
Dr. Ifeoma Ozodiegwu and Dr. Shaoqing Gong, alumni of East Tennessee State University College of Public Health’s Doctor of Public Health program, have published an article in Quantitative Finance and Economics. The article, “Multivariate analyses of social-behavioral factors with health insurance coverage among Asian Americans in California,” estimates the prevalence of health insurance and variables associated with individuals who are not insured.
Faculty from Hunan University, West Virginia University and the East Tennessee State University College of Business and Technology are co-authors.
Studies have shown racial differences in uninsurance rate among adults in the United States. Few studies have focused on social-behavioral factors with uninsurance rate among Asian Americans. This study aimed to estimate the weighted prevalence of uninsurance among Asian Americans of Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese ancestry, and compare it with Whites, African Americans and Latinos. A second objective of the study was to evaluate the associations of smoking, citizenship, and socioeconomic status with uninsurance.
A total of 24,136 adults (aged 18–64) including 2,060 Asian Americans were selected from the combined 2013–2014 California Health Interview Survey. Among Asians, compared to Koreans, being Filipinos or Vietnamese was associated with lower odds of being uninsured; meanwhile being male, non-citizen, lower education, and higher poverty were significantly associated with increased odds of uninsurance. Elder age groups and current smoking were significantly associated with increased odds of uninsurance in bivariate analysis; however, such associations disappeared after adjusting for other factors.
There are differences in prevalence of uninsurance between Asians and Whites, and among Asian subgroups. However, compared to previous estimates, there appears to be a downtrend in uninsurance estimates for Koreans and Vietnamese. Being male, lower education, higher poverty, non-citizen, and current smoking were positively significantly associated with uninsurance. These findings can help design better interventions to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in uninsurance, especially for Asian Americans. To date, there is very limited research examining uninsurance among Asian Americans. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors propelling the uninsurance rate in this population, in order to effectively reduce the number of uninsured individuals.