title: Acculturation and cross-border utilization of health services.
abstract: Health services from Mexico constitute an important source of care for U.S. residents living along the U.S.-Mexico border. Data from The Cross-Border Utilization of Health Care Survey (n = 966) were used to estimate logit models that related acculturation, as measured by generational status, to the use of medication, physician, dental, and inpatient services from Mexico by U.S. residents in the Texas border region. Relative to first-generation Mexican immigrants, later-generation Mexican-Americans were progressively less likely to go to Mexico for health services. This finding holds with or without adjusting for the effects of selected demographic and socioeconomic variables. Addressing unmet needs in medical care in the southwestern U.S. border area should go beyond a simple expansion of health insurance coverage--it is also important to deliver health services that are sensitive to generational differences within the population in terms of linguistic and cultural barriers to health care access.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and South Texas Border Health Disparities Center, University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA. dsu@utpa.edu
authors.forename: Dejun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Daphne
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006296:Health Services / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics; D008297:Male; D057193:Medical Tourism / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017058:Mexican Americans / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008800:Mexico; D008875:Middle Aged; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013781:Texas