Access to Health Care along the US-Mexico Border

Background: To address health disparities issues along the US-Mexico Border, the USMBHC established a 10-year disease prevention and health promotion program- called Healthy Border 2010. One of the selected health indicators is health insurance coverage of the border population. Estimates of health insurance coverage for regions smaller than state level are hard to obtain. Moreover, estimates based on ethnicity for border residents, and the association between access to care and health insurance status was previously unavailable.

Study Design: Four years of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 2000-2003, were merged to calculate lack of health insurance coverage for the 44 counties nearest the US-Mexico Border. Estimates were stratified by selected access to health care survey questions, ethnicity, insurance status, and geographic areas.

Findings: Within the US-Mexico Border, 22.9% were uninsured and 44.1% of these had lacked coverage for a year or more. In comparison with the US, the Border population was more likely to report significant inability to access and afford health care, including having contact with a primary care physician, medical specialist, dentist, or mental health professional.

Conclusions: The data strongly support lack of insurance coverage on the Border. The Hispanic Border population is substantially more likely than Hispanics and Non-Hispanics in any other US region to lack health insurance coverage. This affects their ability to access health care in several fashions. Further work on insurance status and its complex relationship with access to health care is recommended for a better comprehension of this phenomenon on the border.