Health - Doctor And Dentist Visits

Since the 1980s, as more outpatient clinics and other out-reach health facilities have opened, most Americans have had increased opportunities to seek medical help. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported that in 2001 minorities were more likely than whites to have made no health-care visits to a doctor's office or an emergency department during the past twelve months. While 14.3 percent of non-Hispanic whites made no visits to a doctor's office or an emergency department, 16.4 percent of non-Hispanic African-Americans made no such visits. Among Hispanics, 27 percent of the population made no health-care visits to a doctor's office in 2001. Approximately 31.4 percent of Mexican-origin Hispanics made no visits to a doctor's office in 2001. Native Americans/Alaska Natives and APIs were also more likely than non-Hispanic whites to refrain from seeing a doctor. Approximately 21.4 percent of Native Americans and Alaska Natives made no visits to a doctor's office in 2001, compared to 20.8 percent of Asians. (See Table 6.5.)

Among non-Hispanic whites between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four, 68.7 percent reported in 2001 that they had visited a dentist within the past year. Only 57.1 percent of non-Hispanic African-Americans had been to a dentist in the past year, as had only 49.2 percent of Hispanics. Among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, 47.7 percent of people between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four had visited a dentist; among Asians, 64.3 percent had visited a dentist. (See Table 6.6)