In 1989 an estimated 33.9 million persons in the civilian noninstitu­ tionalized population of the United States (13.9 percent) were reported to lack health care coverage. This point-prevalence estimate represents an average for 52 weeks of household interviews conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). It is a measure of a person’s coverage stat...

Background Low socioeconomic position (SEP) tends to be linked to higher use of general practitioners (GPs), while the use of health care specialists is more common in higher SEPs. Despite extensive literature in this area, previous studies have, however, only studied health care use by income or education. The aim of this study is, therefore, to examine inequalities in GP and health care speci...

In this paper we examine the experience of one poor country, Guatemala, that provided childhood immunization partly through a major national campaign, and provided pregnancyrelated services through government health facilities, during the 1980s. Specifically, we compare the breadth of coverage of these two types of services using national sample survey data collected in 1987. We then draw upon ...

KEY FINDINGS Although the Asian or Pacific Islander federal race category was split into two in 1997 (1), few reliable health statistics are available for the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) population. In 2014, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) fielded a first-of-its-kind federal survey focused exclusively on NHPI population health. This report uses data from that su...

As medical information becomes increasingly available and individuals take a more active role in managing their personal health, it is essential for scholars to better understand the general public's information-seeking behavior. The study reported here explores the use of the World Wide Web to seek health information in a contemporary information-media environment. Drawing from uses and gratif...

OBJECTIVES To examine health care access disparities with regard to health status and presence of functional limitations, a common measure of disability and multimorbidity, after controlling for individual's race/ethnicity, insurance status and income in the U.S. using the latest survey data. METHODS Using data from the 2009 Family Core component of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)...

Low-income children are in worse health than other children are. This paper explores the extent to which insults to health and activity limitations are responsible. In the most recent National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data, low-income children are more likely than other children to have virtually every measured chronic or acute condition and are more likely to be limited by these conditio...

BACKGROUND We explored racial/ethnic differences in perceived cancer risk and determinants of these differences in a nationally representative sample of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. METHODS Multiple regression techniques, including mediational analyses, were used to identify determinants and quantify racial/ethnic differences in the perception of the risk of developing cancer among ...

[Purpose] The objective of this study was to determine the effects of virtual reality-based balance training on balance of the elderly. [Methods] The subjects were 32 healthy elderly people aged between 65 and 80, who were divided into a VR (virtual reality) training group (n=17) and a control group (n=15). The VR training group engaged in a 30-minute exercise session using Wii Fit three times ...

Methods Data are based upon the Adult Complementary and Alternative Medicine supplement, the Sample Adult core, and the Family core components of the 2007 NHIS. The survey contained reasons for using CIH including treatment of a specific health problem, general wellness or general disease prevention, and other reasons. We created four mutually exclusive categories for analysis: 1) “yes” to trea...