Miryam C. Granthon, MPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 200 Indepedence Avenue, SW, 738G Humphrey Building, Washington, DC, DC 20201, (202) 401-0734, mgranthon@osophs.dhhs.gov, Marie Diener-West, PhD, Dept. of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Hygiene E3012, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, and Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health, 624 North Broadway, Rm 441, Baltimore, MD 21205.

Quality healthcare is essential to eliminating health disparities. But do all Americans get such quality care? How many people in the U.S. have health insurance? Also, changes in the structure of the U.S. health care system, including the increasing influence of market forces, changes in payment and delivery systems, and welfare reform, have had significant implications for vulnerable and at-risk populations. The following analysis will review the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data from 1999 on Latino/Hispanic Americans. Beginning in 1996, MEPS sample were designed to facilitate analysis of health-related issues for Hispanics. Extra effort was made to ensure that enough Hispanic respondents were included in the sample to permit analysis of health care issues for this group. Additionally, Spanish language recruitment materials and interviewers were available when needed. These efforts resulted in a sample of over 4,500 Hispanic individuals in the 1996 panel, 7,542 in 1997, 5,585 in 1998 and 5,852 in 1999. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is the third in a series of medical expenditure surveys conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), formerly called the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. It is a nationally representative, longitudinal survey that collects detailed information on health status, health care use and spending, and health insurance coverage of individuals and families in the United States, including nursing home residents. The paper concludes with specific community health planning and policy recommendations for improving environmental issues that prevent access to healthcare for dominant Spanish speaking Latinos living in the United States.

Learning Objectives:

• 1.Analyze the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data addressing health insurance coverage for Latino subgroups.
• 2.Construct community health planning and policy recommendations for improving environmental issues that prevent access to healthcare for dominant Spanish speaking Latinos.
• 3.Apply easy to follow, Stata instructions on how to use the MEPS public use files and conduct own analysis for oversampled population groups such as African Americans and Latinos.

Keywords: Latino Health, Health Care Access

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Used AHRQ, MEPS data, public files. Used Stata statistical program.
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.