Nativity,Duration of Residence,Citizenship, and Access to Health Care for Hispanic Children

This article examines differences in access to a regular source of health care for children of Hispanic subgroups within the United States. Particular attention is paid to the impact of the immigration status of the mother – including nativity, duration in the United States, and citizenship status – and its affect on access to health care for Hispanic children. Data are pooled from the National Health Interview Survey for 1999–2001 and logistic regression models are estimated to compare Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Other Hispanic children with non‐Hispanic whites and blacks. While initial disparities are recorded among the race/ethnic groups, in the final model, only Mexican American children display significantly less access to health care than non‐Hispanic whites. The combined influence of the mother's nativity, duration, and citizenship status explains much of the differentials in access to a regular source of care among children of Hispanic subgroups in comparison to non‐Hispanic whites.     

Nativity,Duration of Residence,and the Health of Hispanic Adults in the United States1

This article examines subgroup differences in the health status of Hispanic adults in comparison to non‐Hispanic whites and non‐Hispanic blacks. We pay particular attention to the influences of nativity and duration of residence in the United States. Data are pooled from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for 1989–94. Puerto Ricans exhibited the worst health outcomes of any group (including whites and blacks) for each of the three health measures. Persons of Central/South American origin exhibited the most favorable outcomes for activity limitations and bed sick days, advantages that were eliminated when controlled for nativity/duration. For two of the three health status variables, Mexican Americans were very similar to non‐Hispanic whites in baseline models and were more favorable than non‐Hispanic whites once socio‐economic factors were controlled; this was not the case, however, for self‐reported overall health. Immigration also helped to explain the relatively positive outcomes among Central/South American origin individuals, Cubans, and Mexican Americans. For most Hispanic groups (as well as non‐Hispanic whites and non‐Hispanic blacks), immigrants reported better health than the U.S. born, which is consistent with a selectivity hypothesis of immigrant health. In addition, this advantage tended to be significantly smaller among immigrants with ten or more years' duration in the United States. Although the latter finding is consistent with the negative acculturation hypothesis, alternative interpretations, including the generally more limited access of immigrants to the formal health care system, are suggested.     

Neighborhood residential segregation and physical health among Hispanic Americans: good, bad, or benign?

Although considerable evidence shows that residential segregation is deleterious to the health of African Americans, findings regarding segregation and health for Hispanic Americans are inconsistent. Competing hypotheses regarding the effects of neighborhood segregation on health are tested with data from Puerto Rican and Mexican American residents of Chicago. Multilevel analyses reveal that segregation is associated with more health problems for Puerto Rican Americans but not for Mexican Americans. In addition, the relationship between segregation and health was conditioned by generational status for Mexican Americans: Second- or later-generation Mexican Americans living in highly segregated neighborhoods had better health than first-generation Mexican Americans in such neighborhoods. These findings reveal that residential segregation has differential effects across Hispanic groups and suggest that a high degree of contact with Mexican Americans promotes health by facilitating flow of informal health resources and social support.     

A MODEL OF RACIAL RESIDENTIAL HISTORY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH SELF-RATED HEALTH AND MORTALITY AMONG BLACK AND WHITE ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES

We construct a dynamic racial residential history typology and examine its association with self-rated health and mortality among black and white adults. Data are from a national survey of U.S. adults, combined with census tract data from 1970–1990. Results show that racial disparities in health and mortality are explained by both neighborhood contextual and individual socioeconomic factors. Results suggest that living in an established black neighborhood or in an established interracial neighborhood may actually be protective of health, once neighborhood poverty is controlled. Examining the dynamic nature of neighborhoods contributes to an understanding of health disparities.     

Racial/ethnic differences in asthma prevalence: the role of housing and neighborhood environments

This article examines the prevalence of asthma among New York City households from 10 racial/ethnic groups, and it explores whether differential exposure to potentially adverse housing and neighborhood conditions helps to mediate observed disparities. After adjusting for household size, Puerto Rican households exhibit the highest levels of asthma, followed by other Hispanic and black households. Mexican, Chinese, and Asian Indian households exhibit the lowest levels of asthma. Results from multilevel logistic regression models indicate that exposure to deteriorated housing conditions and perceptions of low social cohesion in the neighborhood significantly elevate the odds of asthma. Controlling for these conditions along with household characteristics reduces the disproportionately high levels of asthma among Puerto Rican and black households, although they remain significantly higher than the level among white households.     

Parenting Strain Among Mexican‐Origin Mothers: Differences by Parental Legal Status and Neighborhood

Despite increasing recognition of the critical importance of legal status for understanding the well‐being of immigrants and their families, there has been scant research on this topic. Using Wave 1 of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (2000–2002) and the 2000 decennial census, the authors investigated how parenting strain among Mexican‐origin mothers varies by legal status and neighborhood context. They found significant differences in parenting strain by nativity and legal status, with undocumented mothers reporting the lowest level. Results from multilevel models with cross‐level interactions reveal that the influence of neighborhood immigrant concentration differs by legal status. Percent foreign born in the neighborhood is associated with reduced parenting strain for documented Mexican‐origin mothers, whereas it is associated with heightened parenting strain for undocumented Mexican‐origin mothers. The findings provide empirical support for the need to recognize legal status distinctions in studies of the well‐being of immigrants and their families.     

NEIGHBORHOOD DISORDER AND INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITY CAPACITY: HOW INCIVILITIES INFORM THREE DOMAINS OF PSYCHOSOCIAL ASSESSMENT

This article examines contextual models to bring together the disorder and community capacity perspectives, since both are grounded in social (dis)organization theory and cumulative causation. We analyze how individual and neighborhood characteristics, social and physical disorder, and crime affect three individual community capacity outcomes: city quality of life, neighborhood safety, and household moving intentions. The “broken windows” downward spiral suggests that neighborhood incivilities may decrease multiple psychosocial assessments, or, individual community capacities. Consistent with prior research, we find that social and physical disorder decreases all three outcomes. Second, we find that both disorders also mediate neighborhood effects, including socioeconomic status and residential stability. Third, these direct and indirect disorder effects are not altered by prior victimization or neighborhood crime rates. Reducing disorder will, in turn, improve three distinct domains and geographic scales of individual community capacity, and can also reduce the adverse effects of other local area capacity deficits.     

Nativity and Self‐Assessed Health among Pre‐Retirement Age Hispanics and Non‐Hispanic Whites1

Economic, social and familial resources are known to influence subjective health assessments. We examine the salience of nativity in determining how these resources influence self‐assessed health using a large, nationwide sample of Hispanic and non‐Hispanic white adults. The results indicate that while education, accumulated assets and marital status benefit the physical and emotional health of the native and foreign‐born, family resources and income are significant only for the native‐born. English language proficiency is a significant protective factor for both groups and is especially protective for immigrants. These surprising findings call into question previous studies stressing the positive role of the family in maintaining immigrant health.     

BLACK-WHITE DIFFERENCES IN HEALTH AND MORTALITY:

An important segment of social science research focuses on differences in health and mortality between the African American and non-Hispanic white populations in the United States. This article begins by documenting some of the current health and mortality differences. I then review and critique the three major theoretical approaches that are most often used to explain such differences: racial genetic, cultural/behavioral, and socioeconomic. Finally, I present an alternative conceptual framework for the study of black-white differences in health and mortality. This reorientation of the importance of race for health and mortality moves beyond narrow genetic, cultural/behavioral, or socioeconomic representations to include, most importantly, multiple forms of racism as crucial sociological determinants of health and mortality differentials. Key sets of intervening, or proximate, variables are also identified to specify the process by which the health and mortality differentials are created. While no single future study may encompass all of the factors highlighted in the proposed framework, data collection and research efforts in this area can be guided by a model that organizes into a relatively parsimonious framework the seemingly endless number of factors involved in the creation of such differences.     

Measures of Assimilation in the Marriage Market: Mexican Americans 1970–1990

In 1965 the United States rewrote its immigration laws, and immigration increased sharply as a result. The immigrants and the children of immigrants from the post‐1965 period are slowly becoming more influential in U.S. life; the largest of these groups are the Mexican immigrants and the Mexican Americans. The rapid growth of Hispanic and Asian populations in the United States has led to a renewed interest in the question of assimilation; that is, will the new groups assimilate, and if so how long will it take? Will they become part of White America? Will some groups assimilate into the Black‐dominated urban underclass (a process Portes called segmented assimilation)? Will some groups remain permanently separate and socially isolated? In this article, I examine the behavior of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. marriage market, using census data from 1970, 1980, and 1990. The findings are that Mexican Americans are assimilating with non‐Hispanic Whites over time, and the evidence tends to reject the segmented assimilation hypothesis. The interplay between intermarriage and endogamy is studied with log linear models; some variations by geography and U.S. nativity are noted.     

Race-Ethnicity and Health Trajectories: Tests of Three Hypotheses across Multiple Groups and Health Outcomes

Racial-ethnic disparities in static levels of health are well documented. Less is known about racial-ethnic differences in age trajectories of health. The few studies on this topic have examined only single health outcomes and focused on black-white disparities. This study extends prior research by using a life course perspective, panel data from the Health and Retirement Study, and multilevel growth curve models to investigate racial-ethnic differences in the trajectories of serious conditions and functional limitations among blacks, Mexican Americans, and whites. We test three hypotheses on the nature of racial-ethnic disparities in health across the life course (aging-as-leveler, persistent inequality, and cumulative disadvantage). Results controlling for mortality selection reveal that support for the hypotheses varies by health outcome, racial-ethnic group, and life stage. Controlling for childhood socioeconomic status, adult social and economic resources, and health behaviors reduces but does not eliminate racial-ethnic disparities in health trajectories.     

Hispanic intermarriage in New York City: new evidence from 1991

"This study [uses] 1991 marriage records from New York City [to examine] trends in marital assimilation among Puerto Ricans and the non-Puerto Rican Hispanic population. The prevalence of intermarriage varies among the six Hispanic national-origin groups. Changes in intermarriage patterns since 1975 are documented. Results show very high rates of intermarriage with non-Hispanics among Cubans, Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans. Considerable intermarriage among Hispanics of different national origins is characteristic of all Hispanics. Finally, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans have distinct patterns of intermarriage...."     

Cultural and Contextual Influences on Parenting in Mexican American Families

Family stress theory can explain associations between contextual stressors and parenting. The theory, however, has not been tested among Mexican Americans or expanded to include cultural‐contextual risks. This study examined associations between neighborhood, economic, and acculturative stressors and parenting behaviors in a sample of 570 two‐parent Mexican American families. Results support the negative impact of economic stress on parenting through parental depressive symptoms. Neighborhood stress influenced fathers’ depressive symptoms and parenting, but not mothers’. The effects of acculturative stress were inconsistent. Results suggest that contextual stressors common to Mexican American families impact parenting behaviors through parental depression.     

Geographical differentials in the socioeconomic status of Puerto Ricans: human capital variations and labor market characteristics

"This article examines the role of human capital and labor market characteristics in explaining geographical and individual differentials in socioeconomic outcomes of Puerto Rican women [in the United States]. The better socioeconomic performance of Puerto Ricans outside the Northeast can be in part related to their larger amount of human capital. Labor market characteristics also play a role, but their effects are generally small. Net of other characteristics, Northeast residence reduces labor force participation, increases female headship, but reduces welfare use. Of all groups examined, recent migrants from Puerto Rico located in the Northeast show the poorest socioeconomic outcomes."     

Neighborhood and School Factors in the School Performance of Immigrants’ Children1

This article examines the effects of neighborhoods and schools on the achievement gaps between adolescents of different nativities and ethnicities. We show that neighborhood and school conditions are better for natives’ than for immigrants’ children, and they are the worst for Hispanic immigrants. Using cross‐classified hierarchical models, we find that introducing neighborhood and school characteristics helps to account for the disadvantage of Mexican immigrants’ children but to reveal the advantage of Filipino immigrants’ children, compared to native non‐Hispanic Whites. Neighborhood and school effects are not universal: they influence school performance of immigrants’ children more than that of natives’ children.     

Geographic Mobility and Spatial Assimilation among U. S. Latino Immigrants1

Although the spatial assimilation of immigrants to the United States has important implications for social theory and social policy, few studies have explored the atterns and determinants of interneighborhood geographic mobility that lead to immigrants’residential proximity to the white, non‐Hispanic majority. We explore this issue by merging data from three different sources ‐ the Latino National Political Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and tract‐level census data ‐ to begin unraveling causal relationships among indicators of socioeconomic, social, cultural, segmented, and spatial assimilation. Our longitudinal analysis of 700 Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants followed from 1990 to 1995 finds broad support for hypotheses derived from the classical account of minority assimilation. High income, English language use, and embeddedness in Anglo social contexts increase Latino immigrants’geographic mobility into Anglo neighborhoods. U. S. citizenship and years spent in the United Stares are ppsidvely associated with geographic mobility into more Anglo neighbor oods, and coethnic contact is inversely associated with this form of mobility, but these associations operate largely through other redictors. Prior experiences of ethnic discrimination increase and residence in public housing decreases the likelihood that Latino immigrants will move from their origin neighborhoods, while residing in metropolitan areas with large Latino populations leads to geographic moves into “less Anglo” census tracts.     

Longitudinal predictors of homelessness: findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-97

Homeless youth represent a vulnerable and understudied population. Little research has prospectively identified factors that may place youth at risk for experiencing homelessness. The current study utilizes data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-97 (NLSY-97) to examine predictors of experiencing homelessness as a young adult (before age 25). The NLSY-97 includes a nationally representative sample of 8984 youth. Data were first collected from these youth when they were between the ages of 12 and 18 years. The current study examined whether individual and family risk factors reported during adolescence predict homelessness by the age of 25. The findings showed that multiple runaway episodes, nontraditional family structure, lower educational attainment, and parental work limitations due to health increased the risk of homelessness. A permissive parenting style and being Hispanic protected against homelessness. This study offers unique insight into risk and protective factors for youth homelessness and has important clinical implications.     

Mapping Elder Mistreatment Cases: Interactions Between Mistreatment,Dementia, Service Utilization,Access to Services,and Disadvantage

Typical explanations of elder mistreatment have focused on individual-level models. The current study adds to the literature by considering the neighborhood context in which reports of elder mistreatment are made to protective services. Using geographic information system software, the distribution of 751 adult protective services (APS) reports from three cities in southeastern Virginia is analyzed. Results suggest that Alzheimer's cases are distributed differentially across cities and that in one city, reports primarily come from disadvantaged areas. The results also suggest that clients from disadvantaged areas are more likely to refuse services. Implications for policy, theory, and future research are provided.     

Ecologies of risk among African American girls in juvenile detention

• African American girls are disproportionately represented in juvenile detention, yet less is known about their distinctive and heterogeneous needs, especially regarding their psychosocial contexts. Latent class analysis determined four subgroups based on the adolescent ecology (neighborhood, family, peers) among detained African American girls ages 13–17 (N = 188). The Shielded class (32%) displayed the lowest levels of risk and highest levels of protective factors. The Typical class (24%) was close to the sample average on all indicators, with elevated histories of family incarceration. The Family Distress class (16%) reported the lowest neighborhood risk but was marked by high family risk levels and abuse history. The Highest Risk class (28%) had elevated risk on most indicators but particularly high neighborhood and peer risk. These classes significantly varied by youth social context and mental health. Findings bolster the need to consider the diverse, multidimensional contextual experiences of detained and at-risk African American girls.

     

Contextual Models of Party Identification: A Critical Examination

A growing number of papers have appeared which report that the partisanship of the local context influences the party attachments of individual residents. The present paper criticizes this finding and the contextual approach to the study of partisan choice. First, the general mathematical model of contextual partisanship is derived from existing research. Next, a multiple data file, consisting of survey and aggregate evidence, is used to examine the generality of certain specific models. Finally, the same data file is employed to consider the effects of two assumptions common to contextual models, "random mixing" and nonselection. Only one of four specific models is initially found to fit observations. Further analysis reveals that individuals' party allegiances are spuriously attributed to contextual influences as a result of assuming random mixing and nonselection.