How Have You Been? or ¿Como estás?: Does Language of Interview Influences Self-Rated Health Among Hispanic Subgroups?

AbstractThis paper reports language differences in poor/fair self-rated health (SRH) among adults from six Hispanic groups in the United States. Data are from the cross-sectional 1997 –2013 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The total sample of Hispanic adults with valid information for the variables considered in the study (n = 156,374) included Mexican-Americans (Mex-Am; n = 43,628), Mexicans (n = 55,057), Puerto Ricans (n = 14,631), Cubans (n = 8,04 1), Dominicans (from Dominican Republican, n = 4,359) and Other Hispanics (n = 30,658). We compared percentage of the population that reported poor/fair SRH among Hispanic individuals by language of interview and across origins using bivariate tests of association. Multivariable logistic reg ression analysis was used to study the odds of reporting poor/fair SRH based on language among the overall population and each group. Among the six Hispanic origins Puerto Ricans (15.92%), Cubans (16.36%) and Dominicans (15.32%) reported poor/fair SRH at higher levels than the overall sample (12.32% ). In the logistic regression model adjusting potential covariates, those interviewed in Spanish were at higher odds of reporting poor/fair SRH than those interviewed in English (OR = 1.47, p <  0.0001). In the stratified analysis, Mexican–Americans were the only group where language of interview did not affect the odds of reporting poor/fair SRH. There are differences by Hispanic origin for repor...
Source: Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research