Disparities in Health Service Use and Access to Care among Multiracial Young Adults in the United States

Karen Tabb, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chris Larrison, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Shinwoo Choi, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Disparities in health service use and access to service remain critical issues for improving minority health. Almost no studies report the health service use of multiracial young adults. Most studies on multiracial groups are cross-sectional and thus focus on a single time point, so it is difficult to establish how health indicators change for multiracial groups over time. Using survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health we examined factors related to multiracial health service use. After performing a series of weighted binary and logistic regression analyses, differences were found in the rates of health care service utilization when comparing specific multiracial groups to the monoracial majority. Compared to monoracial White young adults, Black-White multiracial (OR = 0.46, 95% CI 0.24-0.89) and Black-Native American multiracial (OR = 0.29, 95% CI [0.11-0.80]) young adults are less likely to report primary care service use.