Health status of the uninsured: An investigation of health behaviors and medical care usage

Currently, approximately 37 million people do not have insurance. The normative belief is that insurance is a necessary and positive component of good health. Sociologists have included insurance in models to predict access to the medical care system, but the empirical relationship between insurance and health had not been tested. The question this dissertation sought to answer is "Does insurance make a difference in health?" The results support an association between insurance and self-reported measures of health. Other findings include: (1) Persons with private insurance rate their health higher and persons with public insurance rate their health lower compared to people without insurance. (2) Persons with part year insurance were not consistently different from the uninsured. (3) After controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, medical care utilization, and health behaviors, full year insurance status remained a significant predictor of self-rated health. (4) Women and minorities were more likely to report worse health after controlling for demographics, socioeconomics, medical care utilization, health behaviors, and type of insurance.These findings have policy implications for expanding current public programs to cover the uninsured and continuing target strategies. This study establishes the relationship between insurance and health as an important area for sociological research and demonstrates the need for further investigation.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio