Difference in healthcare utilization between African americans and caucasians of similar SES

As of March 2010, The Affordable Care Act legislation was passed allowing more people to have health insurance. Recent studies performed by the CDC (2010) indicated that having health insurance does not guarantee utilization. Socioeconomic disparities such as lack of transportation, inability to find a physician to accept insurance, and out of pocket cost all effect a persons utilization of healthcare in the United States ( Schrimshaw, 2011, DeNavas-Walt, 2009). The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in healthcare utilization between African Americans and Caucasians of similar SES. During the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey 504,408 people who were 18 years or older from all 54 U.S. states and territories were randomly selected using a disproportionate stratified sample method. The variables chosen from the survey to analyze included; perceived health care cost too high, medical care coverage, general health status, primary care physician and physical health during the past 30 days. All six variables showed significant differences via Chi-square analyses. For example, subjects reporting lower social economic status reported their medical care cost were too high (p<.05). In addition, subjects reporting their medical care cost being too high also reported being sick more days during the past 30 days (p<.05). Examination of the findings indicate that people with lower SES utilize health care less because they feel that medical care costs are too high resulting in a poorer health status overall. Future research needs to further examine the link between SES and healthcare utilization.