Health is an important part of development, with links to how children do cognitively and academically, and it's a strong predictor of adult health and productivity. A new study of low-income families in the United States has found that children's health and access to health care services differ according to the immigrant status of their parents.
The study, by researchers at Cornell University and the University of Chicago, is published in the journal Child Development, whose September/October 2012 issue has a special section on the children of immigrants.
Although immigrants make up less than 13 percent of the total population, children of immigrants make up 22 percent of all children and 30 percent of low-income children in the United States. Because most children in immigrant families were born in the United States, they are eligible for government assistance on the same basis as all other U.S. citizens. Yet they differ in the extent to which they have health insurance and use a regular health care provider.
The study examined nationally representative data on more than 46,000 low-income children (under age 18) from the 1996, 2001, 2004, and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, a Census Bureau survey. Children's immigrant status was classified according to the status of their parents as nonpermanent residents, permanent residents, naturalized citizens, or members of a native household. The study looked at the health status of the children as reported by their mothers and at whether the children saw a dentist or doctor in the past year.