Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Service Use and Perceived Unmet Health Needs Among Florida Medicaid Beneficiaries

Publication Date: 6/1/2005

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Description:

Both large- and small-scale research findings from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (2004) National Health Care Disparities Report, the Institute of Medicine's Unequal Treatment study (Smedley, Stith & Nelson, 2002) and a variety of specific research investigations (Mayberry, et al., 1999) have clearly identified and explained the important and un-ignorable issue of health disparity in our society. The Healthy People 2010 report (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000) and the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health call for the elimination of health disparities as one of their overarching goals (New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003).

Florida's Medicaid program provided health care related services to more than 10 percent of Floridians in the year 2000—over 2.2 million Medicaid beneficiaries, including low-income children and their families, the aged, blind, and the disabled (Alker & Portelli, 2004; Agency for Health Care Administration, 2004). With over 17 million residents, Florida is growing at a faster rate than the national average, and is experiencing a remarkable change in its minority populations, especially in the population of Hispanic or Latino origin. The comparison of demographic data to the outcomes of access and quality of health care might be expected to illustrate and explain differences in ethnic/racial experiences with Medicaid.

The purpose of this study was to examine data pertaining to the pattern of eligibility status change, physical and mental health services use, and perceived unmet physical and mental health needs for potential racial and ethnic differences among Florida Medicaid beneficiaries.