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CHIA Publishes Research Brief on Impact of Citizenship/Immigration Status On Health Insurance Coverage in Massachusetts

DATE : April 13, 2023

CHIA today published a new research brief exploring the connection between citizenship/immigration status and health insurance coverage rates in Massachusetts.

 

Prior research indicates that citizenship and immigration status are associated with health outcomes and inequities. Correlations between immigration and citizenship status and lower rates of health insurance coverage may be one contributing factor to such health inequities. As the foreign-born population in Massachusetts continues to increase, improved access to information on disparities in health insurance coverage rates by immigration and citizenship status may help reduce these gaps.

 

CHIA''s latest brief: Massachusetts Foreign-born Residents, Particularly Non-citizens, Are Less Likely to Have Continuous Health Insurance Coverage, uses data from three consecutive Massachusetts Health Insurance Surveys (2015, 2017, and 2019) to study gaps in health insurance coverage rates by immigration and citizenship status.

 

Key Findings

 

  • Relative to U.S.-born citizens, naturalized citizens and non-citizens were less likely to have continuous health insurance coverage in Massachusetts (95.2%, 91.3%, 74.1%, respectively).

 

  • While nearly all U.S.-born children (98.1%) had continuous coverage, only 82.1% of non-citizen children had continuous coverage, after accounting for differences in race/ethnicity, gender, family income, education, and health status.

 

  • Among non-elderly adults, non-citizens also had lower continuous health insurance coverage compared with their U.S.-born citizens (79.3% vs. 92.2%).

 

This research brief is part of a collection of reports and briefs focused on health care equity in the Commonwealth. A greater understanding of the linkage between insurance coverage and health outcomes among foreign-born and non-citizen residents may help inform policies addressing health care disparities in this vulnerable population.

 

For more information on the Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey (MHIS), and to read CHIA’s other research briefs, please visit https://www.chiamass.gov/massachusetts-health-insurance-survey/.