Health status and health services access and utilization among Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese children in California.

OBJECTIVES: We examined health status and health services access and utilization of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, Vietnamese, and non-Hispanic White children in California.
METHODS: We analyzed aggregated data from the 2003 and 2005 California Health Interview Survey (648 Chinese, 523 Filipino, 235 Japanese, 308 Korean, 314 South Asian, 264 Vietnamese, and 8468 non-Hispanic White children aged younger than 12 years), examining the relationship between Asian ethnicities and outcomes.
RESULTS: Compared with non-Hispanic White children, Korean children were 4 times more likely to lack health insurance; Filipino children were twice as likely to not have had recent contact with a doctor; Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese children were less likely to have visited an emergency room in the past year; and Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese children were more likely to be in fair or poor health. Age, gender, poverty, citizenship-nativity status, health insurance, and parental marital and child health statuses were related to most outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS: Asian ethnicities have heterogeneous health care access and utilization patterns, suggesting the need for targeted outreach to different Asian ethnic groups.