Improving health insurance coverage for Latino children: a review of barriers, challenges and State strategies.
OBJECTIVE
To summarize key findings on disparities in health insurance coverage for latino children, to present selected socioeconomic and healthcare access indicators for the nine states with latino populations over 500,000, and to recommend state strategies to increase public health insurance coverage for latino children.


METHODS
Literature review performed on latino children and health insurance coverage, key informant interviews with frontline service providers, review of outreach sections of eight state 1115 waiver requests approved by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and national and state data compiled on sociodemographic and healthcare access indicators for nine states with the largest latino populations.


RESULTS
Eligibility and enrollment into Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are hindered by financial, nonfinancial, and social policy barriers. Disparities in insurance and access indicators show that lack of parental employment-linked benefits, procedural barriers to enrollment, and lack of clarification on eligibility for children of noncitizen parents are associated with low levels of insurance coverage among latino children.


CONCLUSIONS
To state strategies consistent with the overarching goal of Healthy People 2010 to eliminate health disparities can increase health insurance coverage for children of low-wage latino workers.
Zambrana
Ruth E
RE
Department of Women's Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. rzambran@umd.edu
Carter-Pokras
Olivia
O
D002648:Child; D003710:Demography; D006291:Health Policy; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000193:education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008484:Medicaid / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017057:Medically Uninsured / Q000208:ethnology*; D011203:Poverty / Q000208:ethnology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States