INTRODUCTION

This report presents the results of an evaluation of racial and ethnic disparities in the health status and health care use of children in Iowa. This is the fourth in a series of reports presenting results from the Iowa Child and Family Household Health Survey, conducted in 2000. Prior to this study, there was little comprehensive information available about the health and well-being of minority children in Iowa. In this study, we compare results for children in four different racial/ethnic groups: African-American, Asian, Latino and White.

The 2000 Iowa Child and Family Household Health Survey included questions about:

  • Children's functional health status including the identification of children with special health care needs
  • Children's access to and utilization of health care services including:
    • Medical care
    • Dental care
    • Behavioral and emotional health care
  • Health insurance coverage of the child and parent
  • School performance
  • Child care
  • Socialization and self-esteem of the child
  • Family environment

The survey was a collaborative effort of the University of Iowa Public Policy Center, the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Child Health Specialty Clinics. The intent of the study was to provide information for policymakers and health planners about children in Iowa from a social health perspective. It was funded by a competitive grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services.

To ensure that the sample would include enough minority children to allow for comparisons of the results by race/ethnicity, an additional 457 households with minority children were called as part of an oversample after the initial 3,200 interviews were completed. These calls were targeted to areas of the state with higher proportions of minority families. The total number of respondents by race was:
• African-American: 134
• Asian: 98
• Latino: 379
• White: 2,932
• More than one race: 84
• Other: 99
The telephone interviews were conducted between May and October 2000 by the Center for Social and Behavioral Research at the University of Northern Iowa. The University of Northern Iowa Human Subjects review board approved the protocol regarding the telephone interview portion of this study. The survey was translated into Spanish by the Translation Laboratory at the University of Iowa. One Spanish-speaking interviewer was employed by the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research to conduct all of the interviews in which parents preferred speaking Spanish. Forty-three interviews were completed in Spanish and are included in these analyses. In any telephone-based survey, there is a possibility that results may be biased because those without telephones are not interviewed; people without telephones may have different health conditions and health care needs than those with telephones. In Iowa, it is estimated that three percent of households do not have telephones.